From a Shard, Darkly
by Ozymandeos
Summary: Life might not have been easy, but it was good. I lived in a small colony where everyone was basically family, a place free of prejudice and free of hate, far away from any kind of conflict. And then it all fell apart because of me. Now I'm alone and in over my head, just trying to survive and thrive the only way I know how.
1. Prologue - The Lost Colony

**This story draws heavily, and with permission, from the layout, habits, and background of the Terminus laid out by KatKiller-V in the "Another Realm" series. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it. Here is a link to the first story; s/11038928/1/Another-Realm-Arrival. I will also be drawing from his idea of Batarian culture and customs. s/11826964/1/AR-Exploring-the-Galaxy is a link to the story he has set up to explain this background, but be careful not to spoil anything for yourself.**

 **However, back to this one, KatKiller-V is serving as my beta writer. We both have extremely high hopes, so, read on!**

 _Prologue: The Lost Colony_

It was a barely-habitable world that my parents had immigrated to when they had me, an initially unnamed planet in the Dark Rim that showed evidence of having been partially terraformed by the Protheans. It had no real useful resources, but when a few of Warlord Cessa's crews had reached the stage where they wanted to settle down, she had given the green light and the funds to establish the initial infrastructure, the planet being named _Falivas_ , after a vote by the Turian majority, in honor of a nickname that crew had used for their patron. It meant "Spirit of the Seas".

The name did fit, as the few human and Batarian families admitted. A levo world, the colony I'd grown up on was nonetheless predominated by Turians burnt out on spacefaring life, and ready to raise a family. They fed themselves using imported soil and greenhouses, while the dozen or so Batarian exile families and the three other human households subsisted on fish from the ocean and an alien grain that grew wild in the plains. It was a simple life, with a Turian woman and Batarian priest educating us children. My parents taught me English, but lowborn Batarian was what we spoke in day-to-day life. All of us kids learned Turian too, and we all basically knew how to talk to each other and our friends parents.

I spent a lot of time with the Batarian priest, the only mid-caste in our little colony. He saw how I had a bigger drive to learn than most of the kids here, and taught me highborn Batarian as well, even teaching me to read it in the small, handwritten transcript of the teachings of the Pillars of Strength that he had carried with him since his induction into the priesthood. My parents had never been religious, but they didn't object to me learning about the alien beliefs. That had been part of why they'd left Earth right after first contact, ending up in the Terminus running with a small smuggler group that joined up with Cessa in the Dark Rim after she saved them from a Blood Pack raider. That was the story they told me, at least.

Life wasn't easy, especially as we started to drill for something to repay Cessa with. A few small deposits of mid-value minerals were all we really ended up with, but there were the right amounts of materials that, by the time I was ten, we had a small foundry making armor-grade ceramics for Cessa's hardsuits, and for export. The Turian who ran it showed me a few tricks of the trade, and took me on as a kind of apprentice alongside his daughter once us kids were old enough to start contributing to the colony.

We didn't have an extranet connection, and this far out in the backwaters of space we were in our own little insulated bubble. The growing tensions and hostilities between my race and the Batarians, and the animosity between Turians and the Alliance, didn't bother us. We had a few disputes, but everyone got along for the most part. I spent most of my time with Mellaris, the armorsmith's daughter, and a pair of Batarian twins named Lilush and Varush, the former being a girl and the latter a male, with both being about two years younger than me. They were Nalii's, the priest, grandchildren and both worked with their father, an exiled soldier. The girl was training as a pilot with the battered shuttle the colony used, and the boy and her both were being taught by their father to fight.

Life was fairly peaceful, no new immigrants coming into the colony and nobody really getting hurt or leaving. When we weren't working, us kids could swim in the ocean that covered nearly eighty percent of the planet, something that me and the twins spent a lot of time doing, though Mellaris usually sat on the beach complaining about how sand was getting in her plates. Turians were notoriously bad swimmers, according to everyone, but she did put in an effort.

Not to mention she looked great, as did Lilush, in the minimal clothing that we wore to swim. In terms of attraction...I most certainly wasn't normal. It was probably because there were no human women in my age range around as I grew up, but both Batarian and Turian women were kind of attractive to me. I'd never done anything, of course; they'd told me that I was basically like a brother to them both, so there hadn't been any chance of that even if I'd tried.

I was sixteen now, and laying on the same beach by myself just thinking. I'd gotten the day off earlier because I'd pulled an all-nighter yesterday getting an order filled for the pickup by one of Cessa's frigates later today. Mellaris was still working, and everyone else was busy, so I'd come out here. But, after more than an hour laying here, I got up and just started walking along the beach. The sun here was apparently weaker than Earth's, but it could still give some really nasty sunburns as I'd learned the hard way. After about five minutes my foot hit something in the sand. That was unusual; the beach here wasn't rocky, at all, and it hadn't felt like driftwood.

Curiosity getting the best of me, and I dropped to my knee and brushed the sand away. A dull grayish-green, smooth surface was revealed, which continued in either direction through the sand. It felt like metal, and it kind of excited me. This planet had apparently looked like someone had tried terraforming it when Cessa opened the relay leading here, so maybe this could be something left from an ancient alien race. I knew for a fact that nobody from the colony had built this here, and a lot of the beach here had washed off in the last week's storms. It was several feet lower than I remembered, if the steep hill where sand turned into soil was any indication. Whatever had been buried, it had been here for a long time.

More and more of the metal was revealed as I went, and it showed no signs of stopping even as I uncovered a haptic panel, a huge rarity on a cheaply assembled prefab colony like this. It wasn't there one second, but then I apparently cleaned the sand off of the emitter, and as my hand touched it the ground under me gave way as the door, or whatever it was, slid open. A veritable mountain of sand tumbled in with me. My ribs hit a metal step, driving the wind out of me, and I rolled down several more before splashing into a thin layer of brackish, foul-smelling water.

My head stayed above water as I coughed and spluttered to get my breath back, my ribs burning with each heaving breath even as the sand and dust stirred up into the air scratched at my throat. After a few minutes I could finally start moving, my eyes already adjusted to the greenish metal around me, which was streaked with rust and dead brown algae. The only light was that which was coming though the opening I'd fallen into, up a long flight of stairs. Turning in the other direction, and still nursing the bruise on my side, I saw another door, the water at the bottom of it about shin deep over landing in front of it. Its haptic was still lit, a red color that I assumed meant it was locked. Then again, aliens might not have used the same color scheme as modern civilization, so I limped over to try it anyway.

When my hand touched it, the door opened and several loud alarms started blaring. The room that it opened into was lit by strobing lights as some kind of harsh voice, almost reminiscent of a Batarian's and a Turian's playing at the same time, spoke over crackling, static-filled speakers. The sound, and the fact that the massive room seemed to have alien skeletons laying in the water inside it, unnerved me greatly. But...I didn't want to leave empty handed. There was a table that one of the skeletons was laying next to near me, a weird, overturned chair with what seemed to be a melted hole in its back, sticking up from the water. On top of it was what looked like a picture I'd seen of a Prothean beacon, except smaller. It was a black and green rectangle, with multiple layers and bumps that made it look kind of like a crystal, and there were lines etched along it.

I splashed over to it, looking around nervously as some kind of scraping rattling sound echoed out from deeper in the ruin, and reached out. I was eager to grab it and get out, this was getting too weird. I was already turning around, the thing just visible in the corner of my eye, when it suddenly lit up, glowing bright green along the etched in lines, and a spark jolted through me as my fingers touched it. I started to lift it up and...

...shard clutched tight in my hand as the alarms started. The ground shook, a massive rumble drowning out the first words to blare through the intercom, but then Xithan's voice came through saying, "...lost. I repeat, the surface is lost. Civilians, retreat to fallback position three. I repeat, fallback position three."

He was repeating the same message over and over again. The few artisans and laborers that had been here eating were running as fast as they could, while I pulled the rifle slung across my back out, nestling it into a ready position.

I was turning to the entryway, knowing it wouldn't be long before they found it, when the snap-whine of an energy lance rang out and my a burning pain hit me. I couldn't even scream, all the air burning out of my lungs as the emerald beam pierced the armor on my chest, melting a hole through my chair as I started to tumble backwards.

My eyes locked onto the cold glare of a guard in full armor by the door, his lance still raised as the beam snapped off and the shard slipped through my fingers...

I jolted upright, my back cracking as I did and water splashing everywhere. My hands flew up to my chest, my heart hammering as the burning pain in my chest slowly faded. I couldn't find a hole or wound, but there was blood all over the neck of my shirt, which I realized had come from my nose a moment later. My head was throbbing as the alarms rang out still.

"Alert! Alert! Unidentified Species has breached perimeter! Base Self-Destruct initiated; T-Minus seventeen minutes to thermonuclear detonation." The droning voice started again immediately after, the alarms driving my head deeper into agony.

My stomach lurched as I staggered to my feet, my thoughts muddled and sluggish. I couldn't think, more than to know I had to leave. The room was empty as I staggered to the stairs, sand crunching under my feet and my vision warped and twisted, feeling like something was missing. I couldn't focus my eyes right as the muted, red-filtered sunlight poured down from the top of the stairs, a foggy haze that filled the sky.

When I got back up onto the sand, an acrid scent reached my nose. It was muted but it smelled like...smoke. The sand was trampled down, the footprints weird and three-toed. They were too long to be Turian. A splitting pulse in my head made me stagger, and for a second they looked normal and the entire beach seemed weird, emptier than it should have been. Then I shook my head and started off, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I saw smoke billowing from the colony.

My first steps were too long, and staggering. I felt like throwing up as I moved, and everything felt wrong. As I moved my vision would flicker between what I could see and the same landscape, but with black and green spiraling towers. Between the billowing smoke and distant colony, and swarms of dark insects blocking out the sky as crimson light rained down into a city. I didn't know what was happening, but after over a minute of running I realized that flashes of green light were actually there.

A scream reached my ears as soon as I crossed the outlying tool shed where the colony kept its hunting gear. It sounded Turian, a flanging cry of anger that made my blood run cold. I'd barely even been taught how to fire a gun, but I knew going into whatever was happening empty handed would be suicide.

I threw up when I saw the Turian corpse laying on the ground inside of the shed, a clean hole burned through his head, no blood or anything anywhere. Just a clean, cauterized hole. The body was facedown, so I had no idea who it was, save from being one of the adult male Turians. I...I didn't want to know yet either.

I was shaking, my throat and nose and mouth burning, as my hands wrapped around the stock of one of the long-barreled hunting rifles inside the shack. I knew it wasn't meant for going through barriers, but it was better than nothing. And maybe whatever did this wouldn't have any.

The Turian from before screamed again, and this time there was the crack of a gunshot followed by a snap-whine, and another enraged shout. It sounded close. Like, inside the forge right across from me close. It...it sounded like Mellaris. But if It was her I'd have heard her father too. They both should've been there working.

I ran closer, stumbling as my eyes kept trying to shift focus, but skidded to a stop when I saw something stepping back outside the door. It wasn't Turian. It wasn't human. It wasn't Batarian. I didn't know what it was, but it...

 _Wrong. Enemy. Not Us._

The words rang out in my head like thoughts. I agreed with them, but hadn't consciously thought them. As the rifle on my shoulder barked, the figure turned to me. There had been no flare of barriers, and it hadn't moved, so I assumed I'd missed. Trembling, I tried to line the shot up again as it raised a blocky rifle towards me again, the dark and desiccated husk of a being in front of me superimposed by a more lifelike figure in the same pose. My rifle barked and it fell back, a beam of green energy firing wide and carving a chunk out of the metal roof of the building as it collapsed.

Not believing that I'd just killed something, I ran up to the door. I found myself face-to-face with another of these things, rusted and decayed metal clinging to what looked like bones as four metallic eyes glowered sightlessly down at me. It raised its arm with a creak as I screamed, but the boom of a heavy pistol firing left it with a gaping hole on the front of its forehead, shards of bone showering my face as it collapsed to reveal that the entrance lobby was filled with dead...things. I didn't know what else to call them.

It also revealed Mellaris standing in the center of a scorched wall, one of her arms hanging limply at her side with long line scorched down the plates that lined it. The other held her father's Carnifex, the barrel glowing red even through its peeling paint. Her mandibles were drooping, quivering with what I knew to be fear, and she looked exhausted. Terrified, even.

"I...Spirits. Is that really you?"

All I could do was nod. I was shaking too, especially since she was there with the pistol instead of her dad.

"I thought you were dead. They-they came from the beach a few minutes ago." She gulped and visibly shook. "They killed Dad. They're killing everyone."

She staggered forward, brittle machines crumbling to dust under her taloned feet, and fell into me in a very human hug, gasping and sobbing as she held me. "This can't be real."

"I...I think it is."

"W-what?" She looked up at me, her tone implying confusion.

"I think I caused this. I found some kind of alien ruin. I think these things came from it." My voice was cracking and shaking but she just looked at me blankly.

"S-Selos. You're scaring me. I can't understand you."

I was halfway through saying 'what' when I realized I wasn't speaking Turian. Or Batarian. Or even English. It was something else, but it felt as natural as breathing, and took a conscious effort to switch back to Batarian. The words I'd heard in the ruins, the countdown to a nuclear explosion chilling me to the bone. If we didn't get out of here, we were dead for sure.

"I...I know what happened. I can't explain now," my voice sounded rough, even to me. "We have to get to the shuttle and get out of here. There's an alien ruin underground on the beach. It's going to explode and kill us all if we don't get out of here."

She looked at me askance, but she took it at face value. She trusted me. And, after causing this, that meant a lot. "But...what about everyone else?"

"The shuttle can't fit us all. If they weren't at home with their guns they're probably dead." It hurt to admit, but it was true. Everyone we knew was either dead now, or would be soon. "The twins should be in the field with the shuttle and their dad. We can get to orbit and wait for the supply frigate coming later today."

She nodded hesitantly, and then my ears started ringing as her pistol cracked again before one of the things behind us could attack. We crept out into the small alley, between the foundry and one of the prefab houses, the same one I'd come in through. There were none of the figures in sight, and we started back towards the edge of town. We'd skirt across to where the shuttle was kept, in a clear field on the landward side of the colony. It would be in the open but most of these things would be in the town, not here.

We were almost out of the alleyway when a tortured groan of metal rang out. We froze, her looking around and me looking up. The torn triangle on the roof was slipping, the tiny shreds of metal holding it together snapping as it leaned over towards us. Towards Mellaris.

"No!" I shouted, my focus slipping as the word came out in that other language. I shoved her out of the way just as it broke free, sending both her and myself to the ground sprawling. I hadn't even begun to stand when it landed on my leg, pain unlike anything I'd ever felt flooding my eyes with tears as I screamed.

 _Pain. Push through. Can't die._

The thoughts still didn't feel like mine. But, they felt right, and they mimicked what Mellaris was saying to me, begging me to move, to be ok. Somehow, despite every ounce of my body saying to just give up, I started to move. She shoved the debris off my leg, looking sick as her mandibles hung open. I didn't look back; I didn't want to know what it looked like. I couldn't feel anything but pain, like my entire leg was a lump of nerves set on fire, beneath my mid-thigh, and trying to move it just made it ten times worse as my Turian friend threw up.

"H-help me up. I can walk if you help, we have to get out of here."

It took way too long, and way too many bitten back screams, to get up on my good leg, and lean almost all of my weight on Mellaris. I could lean on her shoulder; it was probably the first time she was ever glad to be short for her race. We managed to get a rhythm going, albeit one that sent tears streaming down my face every time whatever was left of my leg touched the ground. We left the hunting rifle on the ground where I'd fallen, and my Turian crutch kept her pistol aimed at the rim of the colony as we limped along.

I was really nervous about the time when the shuttle came into sight, a single standing figure visible next to it. Out behind the shuttle several fires were burning in the grass, and vitrified furrows were left in the soil around it, along with over two dozen of the corpses of these things. As we approached, a gunshot rang out and a small puff of dirt went up next to us. My throat was raw from screaming, but Mellaris stepped in and shouted not to shoot.

The figure, too short to be Varush or his father, turned out to be Lilush, who was standing over the fallen bodies of her two closest male relatives, each in half-armor. Instead of scorch marks and burned holes, they had punctures, blood soaked dirt making up the ground under them. It just made me feel sick.

"You two are alive!" She seemed relieved. Then her eyes darted down to her family. "I...they're hurt, badly, but they're still alive I think. I put that medigel thingy on both sides of their wounds but they aren't waking up."

Her eyes saw my leg then, as we got closer, widening as her face flushed a darker green as she tried to fight the urge to throw up. "We need to get them in the shuttle and get out of here."

"What about everyone else?"

"If they aren't dead now they will be in a few minutes," I explained, trailing off into a pained groan as Mellaris moved me into one of the worn-down seats in the shuttle. "I'll explain later. We have to get into orbit. There's going to be a nuclear explosion."

Lilush was panicking. She might have been going into shock; by the Pillars, all of us probably were. And we had a right to be. But, she had to hold it together. She was the only conscious one here who could fly the shuttle. In less than a minute the two women had managed to bring the unconscious Batarians into the shuttle, laying them out on the floor. As I looked down at them, I saw my crushed, mangled leg and would have thrown up again if there was anything left in my stomach. Instead, I just sat there gagging.

One of the bay doors was closed and sealed, and Lilush was warming up the engines in the cockpit, when the little hope I'd built up crashed down again. A crack from outside rang out, and Mellaris dropped with a bullet hole in the center of her chest, a spray of indigo blood painting the door and the floor behind her as she slowly fell backwards, her eyes wide and her mouth open in a silent scream.

My scream wasn't silent as I flopped off the seat, jostling my leg, and managed to slam the door shut as we lifted off the ground. Lilush was calling back to me asking what had happened, but I couldn't bring myself to answer, too busy trying desperately to stem the blood pulsing from my closest friend's chest.


	2. Chapter One - Setup

_Chapter One: Setup_

Unsealing the clamps on my helmet, I took a deep breath of the unfiltered air inside my new home. I immediately regretted it as the acrid scent of the filth of half a dozen species flooded my nostrils, sending me into a coughing fit that didn't subside for the better part of thirty seconds. I'd have to see about getting filtration systems and environmental seals added as soon as I could, but that would probably be a long time.

The room in front of me extended probably about forty feet back, rather massive for a place on Omega. The walls, initially, were concrete over a foot thick, but that shifted to the natural stone of the upper-districts of the station. It was shored up with metal braces and plating, showing the Turian origin of the structure which prevented tunneling from behind. It was completely empty and barren, save for the four crates stacked in the back right next to a staircase tucked against the wall. The crates were filled with inventory that people would kill for, but that was why a cabal from the Cresting Wave would be coming in to provide security for the next three Omega days.

The crew of the freighter that had shuttled me and the goods I needed to start up the shop here had just left. One of the crates contained a basic industrial-grade fabricator that would be able to create parts, albeit slowly, and the tools I'd need to assemble the guns I'd be selling. A second contained prefab barriers and plastic panes I could weld together with my omnitool to separate the inventory area from the storefront. The last two were my actual stock, packed full of base-model pistols and shotguns. Nothing fancy, but it was enough to start, especially since they were all new, something very uncommon in the Terminus. It was also expensive enough that I'd be in debt to my supplier for a long time after the store started up.

But that wasn't a big worry. Right now I just had to focus on getting established and finding some more long-term security, preferably that wouldn't completely bankrupt me.

I kept the helmet off, tucked rather unceremoniously under my arm, as I limped over to the stairs. The second floor would be open like this one, but I intended to turn it into a workshop. The upper level was where I'd be staying, with the water and air hookups to keep it at least livable. If I could acclimate to the smell, that is.

I sat the helmet down on one of the crates, needing a free hand to hold onto the railing and get up the stairs. Even after six months in therapy and rehab on Horizon, my leg still wouldn't take much weight. It probably never would again, with how the bones had essentially been just dust and fragments by the time I'd gotten there. I could have had it amputated, but there was no way I could afford a cybernetic replacement. Not to mention that whatever that thing in the ruins had done to my head left me with a severe aversion to any kind of cybernetics.

I hadn't told anyone about the memory shard or whatever it was. I'd have been put in a mental asylum. People knew that Prothean beacons could mess with your head, browsing the extranet had told me that, but so far only Asari were known to be able to survive a direct interface, and there was no mention of anything like what I'd touched. Definitely nothing about them re-arranging your own mind.

That's what it felt like had happened. My mind wasn't me anymore. Sometimes, I was almost normal. Others, my eyes had trouble focusing. I couldn't work my fingers right, or even speak anything other than that strange language without concentration. Sometimes there was a big leadup to my 'episodes' as I called them, others it was like someone flipped a switch and it was instant. Seeing certain things would bring up pictures in my head, sometimes even whole memories. Most of them were dark. Traumatic even. But the one connecting factor was the presence of Protheans, and their jumbled nature.

I had headaches almost once a week, ones bad enough that I couldn't move or work as I did it. I was sure that some of the people I'd met on Horizon had noticed the inconsistencies with me. Most hadn't appreciated how I carried myself like a Turian or a Batarian more than a human. But, I hadn't been comfortable around so many of my own race. So, the feeling had been mutual and I hadn't interacted much.

My cane, the walking implement requisite with my leg unable to take my weight, clicked against the stairs as I walked, the ornate metal staff nothing like what I had been given as soon as I could get out of a bed on Horizon. During my free time there, I'd modified and engraved the basic metal rod into a an almost pillar shape, the metal painted a tan color and etched with sayings from the Pillars of Strength, each hand-carved in highborn runes from memory.

The second floor was empty, going back further into the rock than the one below, and with a balcony out front that overlooked the street in front of my shop. The third floor had the same floor space as this one, with no windows for safety reasons, I didn't know the exact layout, though, so instead of going out to the balcony I just turned to go right up the next flight of stairs, reaching the top to come out into a partially furnished space.

The stairs came up into a short hallway, the original walls still intact. I passed four doors, three of which turned out to be bedrooms and the other a bathroom. In total they covered about half of the space on this floor, the other half mostly open. Right after the bedrooms was a sitting area with a few curiously stained couches and chairs, and a couple of fold-out tables. The walls were clear, and it could be easily set up with terminals and entertainment centers given the proper materials.

Further back was a kitchen and dining area, dingy cabinets clustering around dingier appliances. I knew nothing would be stocked yet, but it was a perfectly livable place. Certainly much more than the house I'd expected to build on _Falivas_ after I turned eighteen.

Looking at my omnitool, the slim bracelet on my wrist and its immaterial pop-up screen only just starting to become familiar to me, there was still an hour left before the Cresting Wave arrived. Knowing it was a risk, I still decided to wait in moderate comfort and trust the locking program on the door for now. So, after a few moments spent limping along once I left my clothes in the bedroom, I dropped with a thud onto the cleaner of the two couches. Which promptly collapsed underneath me, one of the legs giving way and leaving the entire thing at a slant, my cane on the ground next to me and my head resting on the concrete after a single, painful bounce.

I started laughing. At first it was just a few chortles. Then it was a cackle. Then it was a full-bellied guffaw that sent tears streaming down my face and convulsions all along my body. It was just, ridiculous.

Up until I fell into that ruin, I'd expected to live and die on my home colony, had no real aspirations except to expand the armor foundry and repay our colony's patron. Now I was sitting in Omega in a fortified house that I was going to turn into a gun store to sell weapons and eventually armor to criminals and gangs. My parents, smugglers though they were, would be so disappointed.

I hadn't expected to end up here like this. Nobody could have. Especially with the memories of some long-dead alien stuck in my head and constantly fighting everything I already knew. It was just so unreal that the only way I could cope, now that I was alone, was to laugh. Or to cry I guess, but I was doing both so it was a moot point.

Maybe I really was insane. Something in my head had to have cracked after what I'd seen. But that didn't really matter. I was here, and I had promises to keep to my sponsor and supplier, and a real reason to want to stay alive for now. I'd never worked with a gun before I'd been on Horizon, not in anything more than just holding it and a few test shots. Yet here I was, ready and willing to stake my entire life on doing well here.

My sponsor sure as hell didn't know it, but that was because the memories in my head came from a Prothean gunsmith. I knew that I only consciously recalled a tiny fraction of everything the shard had done, but more was trickling back as time passed. But there were designs, and images of them in action, of everything from pistol-sized flamethrowers that made their own fuel from the air to functional directed energy weapons like the particle beams that had destroyed my family to shipboard weapons with yields dozens of times higher than modern guns. My head was a gold mine, if everything in it was real.

And that was why I didn't tell anyone. People would kill for what was in my mind. From Terminus warlords to the Council of Matriarchs, everyone with any kind of possible industrial base and military concern would do anything to use what I knew. And...I didn't want that. I had enough blood on my hands as it was. But, this was the only skill I really had, even though it was one I hadn't earned. So I'd have to live with it, and just sell weak or slightly-modified designs.

Or that was the plan anyway. I had no idea what would come in the future, so I was just trying to survive.

By the time the insane spectacle that was my laughing fit was over, and I'd calmed down to a presentable level where I could pretend to be old enough to run this entire thing, it was almost time for the cabal to arrive. So I wrenched myself, rather painfully back to my feet and left the couch tilted as it was. Not that I could really do the heavy lifting to fix it, anyway. A short trip to the bathroom saw me splash my face with the, surprisingly clean, water until I looked decent.

I was just getting down to the ground floor when someone knocked on the door. I cursed under my breath, my cane clacking louder as I hurried across the room to reach the door, arriving just as the third, exasperated-sounding knock rang out. The Asari I'd hired weren't one of the centuries-old teams that I knew operated on station, but rather a group of rather young maidens under the training of a veteran matron. At least, that's what the advert had stated, and they were one of the more reliable groups when it came to delivering.

The lock finally cycled and the door opened, revealing four Asari in sky-blue hardsuits. The paintjob seemed recent, and I couldn't help but notice how it covered up patched sections. The group seemed respectable, though, and matched up with the confirmation photo sent when I'd hired them. Not that I was good at telling Asari apart, anyway; the blue space women still freaked me out. Then again, I wasn't exactly used to being around anything with 'curves' in the sense that attracted most human males.

A glance at my omnitool, and a fresh rush of the horrific scent outside, reminded me that I wasn't wearing my helmet as I ushered them in. Still, I would hate to be an improper host. "I apologize for the delay," I spoke in lowborn Batarian. It, as Nalii had driven into my head as a child, was more proper to use in most situations. "My injury makes it difficult to move quickly."

The lead woman, with the most expensive looking gear, nodded politely, looking me up and down. She replied in the same tongue, "It is alright. I've had a knee injury myself, and I know the inconvenience."

The door closed and locked behind me as she turned to her subordinates and ordered two of them up to the second floor, to stand guard on the balcony. "I apologize that the place is so empty. I haven't had the chance to unpack any of the merchandise or furniture yet."

She nodded again. "I understand. With the payment, and the discount you have offered us, myself and my sisters will gladly aid in the labor of setting up your establishment."

I smiled. At last some actual good news. "Excellent. Would you please remove the lids from the crates in the back? One should have the dividers to set up the sales counter inside."

We worked fairly silently at first, but after the second time the younger maiden flared her biotics to stop the metal plating from crushing my fingers we started up some small talk. The matron didn't say anything except in response to my own words or inquiries as to how I wanted a certain display or shelf set up.

The maiden I was talking to was named Irina. She had only been running with the Wave for a few months, apparently. Her Batarian was rather broken, but with the help of a translator window on my omnitool we managed to hold a fairly decent conversation. It was the first time I'd actually talked openly to someone since Lilush had stormed out of my life. We didn't talk about what brought us to Omega, or why we had resorted to our occupations. We spoke instead about how gorgeous the stars were when you weren't on a planet, and how many surprises the universe had if we just went out to look.

Even this limited physical labor was strenuous to me, though, and I was sweating as we walked up to the third floor living area.

"I'd offer you water or drinks but," I trailed off and gestured around at the state of the place. "I've only just arrived, so I don't have any of the amenities here yet."

"You've purchased our services exclusively for the next few days, so if you wish me and Irina will be able to escort you to purchase such items." She looked at my leg again. In the armor it didn't seem any different, but whenever I moved it was obvious even if you didn't see my cane. "It wouldn't be a good idea to walk around in public unguarded with that limp. Fumi's nowhere near as bad as the Lowers, but you'll still probably end up floating in the tides if you go out alone."

My initial reply was delayed by a wince, my head going from normal to throbbing in a few seconds as my fingers curled into claws and started twitching. Both aliens noticed, one with a look of what I assumed was concern and the other with her face hidden behind a silvered visor. "Would you get them for me?" My voice was strained, my previously well-accented Batarian speech cracking.

After taking a second to shove down the episode and make sure I wouldn't slip into Prothean I managed to explain, "I get migraines. They make it hard to think and move; I can't focus. The best I can do is wait them out and hope the meds I have work."

It took a few seconds to scrabble for the pill bottle inset into the top of my cane. I downed two of the tablets inside, knowing they wouldn't take effect for half an hour at the soonest. My eyesight was already blurring, Irina's face flickering in and out of focus. "Just, get stuff with your best judgment please? I'll eat practically anything if you get me some food, and furniture doesn't matter as long as it's not bloodstained or anything."

The matron was probably looking at me like I was an idiot, but it didn't matter. "I'll reimburse you for whatever it costs, plus a bonus of five hundred credits to each of you for getting it."

After that, and making sure they were ok with doing it, I limped my way into the bedroom right across from the bathroom, which happened to be the largest one, and collapsed facefirst onto the bed there.

I woke up coated in sweat and extremely sore. The sweat was from the nightmares that had been plaguing me for months, some of how my friends and family had died, and others snippets from whatever had killed the Protheans. I never even remembered which it was anymore, and I barely slept except to escape the migraines these days.

A look at my omnitool, the brightness making me squint, showed that almost twelve hours had passed. A full shift and a half of Omega time, which consisted of four eight hour shifts. I stumbled from my bedroom to the bathroom, a glimpse of blue barely visible out of the corner of my eye showing that at least one of the Asari was off-duty and relaxing. There was new furniture there too, but my eyesight was still too fuzzy to make out what.

A quick shower, in unfortunately lukewarm water, left me feeling slightly better before I put on my grimy, sweat-soaked armor undersuit again. Then I shimmied back into the armor pieces, a much more difficult prospect by myself, and checked the seals. I still didn't have my helmet, but I'd attach it before I went outside.

I was feeling better by the time the bathroom door slid open, but I still wasn't too great. I was still sore, everywhere, and I made a mental oath to never fall asleep in my armor again. Instead of going straight downstairs, I clicked my way across the floor to fall into the new couch that had replaced the broken one. It was tan, and made of some kind of foam that shifted to accommodate me. A cheap screen was hanging on the wall across from it, playing some kind of Asari sitcom, and the two maidens I hadn't spoken to were sitting in the kitchen playing some kind of card game.

I made brief small talk with them, but as of now they didn't seem all that interested in talking. So, I walked over and checked the cabinets once I was awake enough. A bunch of cheap, pre-packaged meals that would be easy to make predominated, but some fresher ingredients and perishable beverages were stocked in the fridge.

I didn't recognize any of the food, but I grabbed some kind of vaguely familiar fruit, grimacing at how sweet it was, before starting back down to the second floor. I needed to eat something, though, but I didn't want to just sit around and make a full meal now. I'd been bad about that even before I left home.

The fabricator, and enough materials to make a few pistols but not really anything bigger, were set up in one of the corners, near the main power hookup for this floor. I knew the other two Asari would be out on the balcony keeping watch, so I decided to make a detour over to the machine. I'd read through the manual on the way to the station, so a quick series of diagnostic checks showed that it was working just fine. I made a few useless plastic gun parts from the tub of omnigel, toying around with the controls to get used to it and not waste any of the more valuable metals.

I only had one of my default pistols as a weapon now, which was rather underpowered, so I might as well at least start making one. The one I'd decided on wasn't true Prothean, or anything fancy, but after running conversions in my head while I was on Horizon I knew it was a fair bit better than anything except high-end, military grade special forces pistols. It was the only design I had the specifications for saved on my omnitool, since it was one that I could explain away as being an original design if anyone saw.

The barrel was a third longer than most standard pistols, with four accelerator rails instead of the standard two. The ammo block was in the grip, with the body holding two heatsinks. to allow extended firing. It wasn't pretty, and if someone managed to shoot one of the sinks the entire thing would blow up in your hand. That had been obvious in some of the memories that came up when I thought about it. But while we didn't have the right alloys to follow the design exactly, it would hold up well enough and was fairly cheap to make for the stopping power it had.

The armor model I wore didn't have aim assist, but that was a fairly high-grade feature that most people here on Omega wouldn't have. That meant I didn't have to use anything more than the base software that the microprocessor the fabricator would include had, though it meant I didn't have a way to have it swap between the heat sinks, rather than distributing between both at once.

Nearly an hour later all the parts were done, though the acrid scent of burning metal filled my nostrils after I went to work assembling them. A few pulses of weird anger went through me as I did that. It was almost like the memories in my head were indignant.

 _Wrong. Sacrilege. Perversion_

I winced but pushed those thoughts down. They still didn't feel like mine, but I guessed it was the part of me the memories were in. Whenever something struck a chord with the memories, it would be as if a Prothean voice was speaking in my head. Like when I saw those husk things that I now knew were dead Protheans, or when my leg was crushed. It usually sounded angry.

What I'd been able to gather in my head made it very clear that the Protheans hadn't really been a nice or benevolent people, even before whatever destroyed them came around. They'd been arrogant and superior, subjugating other races like the Turians had to the Volus, and had tried to do to humans. They didn't like mixing their tech, which I assumed had triggered this one episode.

My fingers continuously got in the way as I worked, but, that had been expected. Protheans only had three, and the memories that I was using to put this together relied on that. Maybe I could see about getting Turian or Quarian gloves so I didn't end up pinching and smashing them like I did between the parts now.

After another hour and a half, most of which was spent taking it apart after I realized I hadn't connected the parts right, or the heatsinks were reversed, etcetera. Basically, just undoing simple mistakes from where the foreign muscle memory I was working off of failed to translate correctly into the material world. Eventually, though, even the alien part of my mind seemed satisfied. I slid it into the UV chamber on the fabricator that would bake the adhesive together into more permanent welds that could hold up to repeated use. That process would probably take about half an hour, so I had more time to kill.

I decided to spend it with the Irina and the matron, whose name I still didn't know, out on the balcony. They'd moved a couple of cheap, foldout chairs and a small table onto the balcony, the matron sitting at the table working on her omnitool while Irina rested her arms on the chest-high concrete wall that surrounded the balcony. She had a worn Asari assault rifle, some model I didn't know, held idly in her arms, her helmet actually on as she scanned the street for anyone looking unsavorily at my little shop. It showed that they were taking their job seriously, which meant a lot. A less-reliable mercenary unit might have killed me when I passed out and just taken my supplies for themselves, which honestly was the more likely outcome here on Omega. I was lucky.

"Ah, Mr. Selos," the Matron greeted me, a hint of amusement in her voice. I didn't have a last name to give, so she had to use my first. "I see the tides were gentle on you while you slept. You seem less...green than before your sojourn in the Deeps."

I didn't really understand what she was saying, but I nodded anyway, my lips quirking up in a thin smile. "Sleep really does wonders for the body and soul. You've gone beyond what I expected, especially from the stories of this station, and I thank you for that."

She nodded. "The Wave is not as base as many groups on this station, and my cabal at least prefers to be reputable. If you ever have need of our services, after the current contract lapses, we operate out of an enclave in Upper Fumi not too far from here. I'll ensure that you have my personal communication codes before we part ways, though I'm sure Irina will do the same."

The girl rolled her shoulders in what I'd come to realize was an Asari shrug, not taking her eyes off the street.

"I would appreciate such. Your group will be the first I call if something comes up, here. However, I am looking to hire someone independent as long term security and as a helper in the store. Would you happen to know the best place to look?"

"There's a bar in Doru where reputable new arrivals tend to congregate. I can take you there, if you would like."

I nodded. "That sounds promising. In half an hour my new project will be finished setting, and then we can leave."

She nodded and went back to her omnitool. I decided, rather than walking all the way back upstairs, I'd just wait here with them and try to acclimate to the smell. I brought the screen on my own omnitool up as I realized that I hadn't sent the setup confirmation to my sponsor before the migraine hit.

A short message, confirming that I had arrived safely and begun establishing myself, was away a few minutes later, bounced off the one signal repeater they had on Omega and across a few FTL comm relays back to Horizon. A second was sent over public channels, to a hospital on Xentha specializing in care for paralyzed Turians.

 _Dear Mellaris;_

 _I hope this message finds you well. I've arrived at my destination safely, and the shop is coming together. We'll be open for business as soon as I can hire some help._

 _-Selos_


	3. Chapter Two - The Guard

_Chapter Two - The Guard_

Instead of taking a shuttle or aircar, the matron had walked me down through the main lifts in this section of Fumi. It took upwards of half an hour to get to the bar. As soon as we walked through the door I made a beeline for the bathroom, throwing open the first empty stall as my stomach churned. My visor barely flipped open in time to avoid the stream of acid with barely recognizable chunks of purple fruit inside it.

With the state of the bathroom I'd never been happier to be almost completely covered by armor. And this was supposedly one of the better places outside of Upper Fumi, Tuhi, and Afterlife's attendant district. As I crouched in front of the toilet, I was rethinking my entire decision to come here. I mean, I'd heard the stories, but I thought they were exaggerated. No place with millions of people could be that bad, right? That's what I'd thought, anyway.

After seeing five murders, hearing gunshots every few seconds, witnessing countless drug-deals and prostitution, and even seeing a Vorcha eating a Batarian passed out in an alleyway, I knew I was wrong. And not just in over my head, either. I might as well have been on the bottom of the ocean. I couldn't leave, though, too much was hanging on me now. So, after I was sure my stomach was empty and I'd shoved down the stress of what I'd seen, I wiped my mouth off and sealed the visor again.

There were no thoughts from it, but the part of my mind that the alien memories had settled into seemed disappointed. Or angry. Like, I had no right to be this disturbed by things like I'd seen today, if seeing entire planets burning in the memories hadn't done this to me. Or at least that's what I thought the reasoning was; I had no idea. Whenever I was in the memories, my mind worked differently.

But that wasn't relevant to the matter at hand, which was finding someone in the dimly-lit, smoke-filled bar to serve as security. There was a dance floor on the far side of the room from where I came out, albeit a small and dingy one. The bar lined the right-hand wall, and the rest of the space was filled with tables. Only about half of them had anyone present, most with small groups in battered armor, and the bar was only slightly more occupied. I spotted my guide seated at the edge of the bar and made a beeline to get over there, uncomfortable with how everyone was looking at me.

"...one of these days, Elana." The bartender was a Turian, and as I watched he waggled his mandibles at the matron. It only just hit me that I hadn't asked her name before now, as I slid into a seat next to her.

"Keep dreaming, Claws. You know I prefer squishier aliens." She rolled her eyes and turned to me. "I see you've become acquainted with the restroom. If you eat any of Claw's food you'll end up in there a lot."

The Turian squawked in protest but she just waved him off. "Anyway, my client here is Selos. He's starting up a gun store in Lower Fumi, and for the next few days my Cabal is on loan as security."

I nodded. I kept my visor on, my voice coming out filtered so I didn't sound as young as I really was. "Along with negotiable pay and free equipment, I'm offering room and board. Do you know of anyone who might be interested?"

The man clicked the talons of one hand against the metal railing of the bar, the other filling a cup with some kind of Dextro liquor, if I remembered the labeling system right, and sliding it down the bar to a Turian female. "Do you have any preferences on your hire's race?"

"You mean if they're human or alien? I honestly don't care; I speak Turian, Batarian, and English so communication isn't a problem. I just want someone trustworthy who'll do the job for the foreseeable future."

He made a whirring hum in the back of his throat, then pointed out three of the five tables that just had one occupant. Two Turians, and either a human or Batarian in full, albeit low quality, armor. Probably a Batarian, but with the armor on it wasn't certain. "Vythus and Tellurus both just got out of long-term jobs when their client left the station. Vythus has a drinking habit, and gets violent from it, but he stays off the stuff when he's on the job. Tellurus hates Batarians with a passion, though, and might not be the best at getting their business in. If you don't have any other employees, though, I'm guessing you want someone who'll help sell your merchandise. They're both more of a silent type, anyway, so I wouldn't recommend them unless you hire on a salesperson."

I inclined my head at the third table. "What about them?"

"A Batarian, new to Omega. Freshly exiled, I think. She hasn't shown any animosity to the humans who've come in, but I don't know much about her. Gear looks that _tarthuk_ shit though." He held his arms out in a Turian shrug. "She might be your best bet. If it goes South, though, keep the brawl outside and don't blame me." He started cleaning the glasses he had stacked behind the counter, obviously considering the conversation.

"I'll be here, kid. Go chat up the four-eye if you want, just be careful. I saw how you ran to the bathroom, don't let the tides sweep you away. You're too young for this shithole of a station." Her voice was quiet enough that I was fairly sure nobody else would have heard.

I sighed and nodded my head. "I've realized that. But I've got no choice anymore."

She shook her head. "Nobody really does. This place is the whirlpool that drags in and drowns the hopeless." She rolled up her faceplate and sipped at some faintly-glowing cocktail as I got up from the swiveling stool.

My body language shifted unconsciously to the much stiffer Batarian version, my head tilting slightly left as I saw her armored head shift to me. The faceplate was cracked, and I couldn't help but notice that the pistol she was wearing seemed about to fall apart. She had to have fallen on hard times.

"You are looking for work, correct?"

Her head tilted to the right, but not too terribly far. Her response came in highborn, but with a much more cultured accent than I'd expected. It was almost like talking to Nalii again. "I might be." Her eyes had to be flicking up and down to take in my posture, probably focusing on the gun at my side.

"I have an offer, if you would be interested. Pay is negotiable, and it includes a place to stay as well as several other benefits." I paused and crossed my arms slowly, as I knew Batarians did when bartering. "The contract would be long term, over the course of at least a month, and preferably for longer."

Her head straightened out and she leaned it back. "What are the details, Human?"

"I'm a gunsmith and an armorer. I'm looking to hire live-in security, preferably an individual with combat experience and no particular aversion to any potential customers. It would be a bonus, and as such earn more pay, if you were willing to take turns behind the counter as well."

"You mentioned additional benefits?" Her tone would have sounded disinterested or offensive to someone who hadn't grown up around Batarians. It just showed she was thinking.

"Free maintenance of weapons and armor. Once profits come in, it will include a free set of armor, and a gun, whether one from our inventory or a design of my own."

"That gun on your hip. Did you design it?"

I nodded, slowly pulling it off my hip and offering it, grip-first, to her. She took it and turned it over, flipping up her visor to get a clearer view. I started listing off the specifications. "This is just a prototype model. It has twice the accelerators inside of it, a longer barrel than most pistols. There are dual heatsinks mounted externally along the barrel. I haven't been able to alter the microprocessor yet, but preferably I would have it set up where it altered between sinks to prevent overheating, but as it is the heat is evenly distributed."

Her face was, structurally, about the same as the Batarian women back home. But appearance wise, she was almost completely different. Her skin was almost silver, darker along the ridges that cascaded along her face and around her nearly-closed nostrils. Her pupils were rimmed in shimmering silver flecked with sapphire, compared to the nearly-black color that most had. "What's the expected yield?"

"Theoretically, it should compare to Turian and Human special-forces pistols. It hasn't been tested, however. It wouldn't pass safety inspections in Citadel Space, but out here I assume people will care more about the firepower than the risk of getting their hands blown off by a shot hitting the barrel."

She blinked the lower set of her eyes, then inclined her head forward. Agreeing. "You would assume correctly. Are these mass-producible?"

"With the proper equipment, yes, but the assembly is too complicated to be handled by a fabricator. I have other designs, though, but I don't have the materials to make them."

Her lips drew back in a straight line. "Your offer. When could I begin?"

"Whenever you were able. We should be opening for business within the next few shifts, and I have a cabal of the Cresting Wave hired out until the day after tomorrow." I gave a polite bow. "Might I inquire as to the name of my new business partner?"

"Reyja'Krem Sal'Ris ul Rakan."

I blinked and tilted my head further left. "I apologize, Reyja'Krem. I had no idea I was speaking to a highborn. I would be honored to employ one of your illustrious stature."

She slide her visor down once more, standing and offering a shallow bow to me. "For a human, you know our traditions well."

"I grew up in the Dark Rim, and was educated by a midcaste priest. I spent as much time with him as with my parents, and I suppose that it shows."

She didn't say anything, just handed me back my gun, which slid onto the magnetic clamp on my hip. I'd left my cane at the bar while I went to talk to her, not wanting to appear weak. It was difficult to look like I was walking normally, but with a bit of pain I could put up with it for the dozen steps it took to get back. Sal'Ris followed me.

My Asari guide finished her drink and paid for her tab, and then we left. Rather than watch what was going on around us, I kept my eyes glued to my omnitool. There was no reply from Mellaris, yet, though I did have an acknowledgment from my sponsor. The order for raw materials I'd put in, using the discretionary funds they'd given me, was due to arrive sometime tomorrow. It was more of the generic omnigel, and a shipment of specialized electronics and pre-assembled weapon mods would be arriving. There should be at least one crate of the closest alloy I could find to Prothean weapons-grade material with it.

We should be able to open for business as soon as could unpack the inventory and prep the display models. That meant removing their ammo blocks and shavers. I was running the numbers, something I'd never really been good at, to figure out when the shop would be actually making profit. I was almost five hundred thousand in debt to my sponsor for securing the building for me, and for the discretionary fund, and that didn't even factor in the money I'd have to pay for further supplies. At an average of five hundred credits per pistol, and two thousand per shotgun, and factoring in what I knew the cost would be for more of the same, I'd make about fifty thousand back every time I cleared my inventory. Not counting any upgraded, custom, or resold guns, or the armor business I'd be starting once I could afford a better fabricator.

The other two Asari were out on guard duty when we got back, the codes on my omnitool undoing the lock on the door as they nodded at us. Before we got back inside I saw a rather large, rather concerning, concentration of people at the far end of the street. Elana kept flicking her head towards it until the door shut.

"You know how to use that gun, kid?" I nodded. The Asari gestured at the door. "Good. You might need it; that's a raid mob."

"Raid mob?"

"Disaffected citizens from the Lowers. Sometimes they start by themselves, but usually the Blood Pack stirs them up. They'll kill practically anyone they see, and if they can they'll loot everything." She paused to bark something into her omnitool in Asari. "They might be able to break through that door if they have any biotics, and the balcony probably won't be safe either."

I turned to the Batarian as the Asari conversed with each other. "The two crates back there have low-end military grade pistols and shotguns in them. Help yourself."

She slid through the doorway into the back of the store to do just that while I clicked over to Elana. "Do you think they'll attack us?"

"Most likely. We already put up and activated the display for your store sign. I had it turned off but they already saw, and they'd do anything to get in here at these guns."

"Just great..." I was feeling sick again. There had to be dozens, if not hundreds, of people out there. I might have to fight and that terrified me; I'd never hurt anyone or shot anything except those undead robot things. And those just killed you; this mob would do a lot worse.

"Hey, relax. I've dealt with this before, and you've got five biotics here." She reassuringly put her hand on my shoulder. "We've all got barriers and armor, and half the people out there will only have one or the other. Their guns will be tides-damned pieces of crap, and we should be able to scare them away."

"Shouldn't Aria be breaking this up, though?"

The woman laughed. "That bitch? She'll only interfere if they touch any of her businesses. She keeps mobs like this out of Doru, and Calas handles itself, but that just means they always end up here in Fumi. The Hunters might send in a team to break it up, since this whole area is nominally their territory, but we should expect to weather the storm for at least a couple of hours."

"What's the plan then?"

"Letting your hires do their jobs, eh? A lot better than some contracts I've had who think they know everything. I'll leave two of the girls down here in case they break in, and the rest of us will be up on the balcony in full armor. If that doesn't steer them away, my Cabal and your new higher will push them out with shockwaves."

"So we're not going to shoot them?" I breathed a sigh of relief before she even answered.

"Not unless they force us to. I prefer to give these wayward souls the benefit of a doubt unless they're trying to kill us."

A few minutes later we were up on the balcony, Irina keeping up a barrier to deflect any stray shots. Every now and then it would ripple, but even as the mob crept closer we didn't get too much attention from them.

I was leaning against the wall, my pistol out and held in the general direction of the street. Sal'Ris was next to me. When she spoke it was uncharacteristically soft for a Batarian. "This is a fairly good location. Right on an intersection, but good sightlines in each direction. No way for anyone to get in without us seeing, and the overhang from the next level stopping climbers."

My response was an agreement, "And we're not all that far from a few lifts going down to Doru. We should get a lot of traffic, at least, which will be good for business."

We were silent for the next fifteen minutes, as the mob got close enough that I could see the bloodstains as they dragged along trampled bodies. It was sickening. They were coming from the street directly ahead of us, and we were the only building in sight with people visible. That was when it struck me that I hadn't even tried firing my pistol yet.

"I just realized I haven't test fired this gun yet."

All three of my companions looked at me like I was an idiot. Elana voiced the concern that I'm sure all of them shared. "So, you're saying that the pistol, which you've admitted can blow up like a grenade, might blow up the moment you try to use it."

"You tech's are always so empty-headed. I'm amazed you don't forget to breathe sometimes." The elder Asari's words were deserved, but they still stung.

I shrugged, hiding my hurt. "Sorry, I've had a lot on my mind today."

I walked over to one of the side edges of the balcony, taking aim at the vast expanse of stone instead of the building across a decently sized gap from us. Really hoping I'd put it together right and that I'd come out of this with all my fingers, I pulled the trigger six times as fast as I could. It should be able to take almost a dozen shots in a row, with a few seconds needed for it to discharge the heat of each, so that was a decent amount to test.

The kick was massive, the barrel climbing with each shot, but that was mostly because I wasn't expecting it. Or really trained to handle firearms. The bracing built into my armor's wrists meant it didn't hurt me, though. So that was good. The crack was deafening, easily twice as loud as the ones echoing down the street, and each shot left a visible pockmark in the wall.

"Alright, so it works. I'll give you that. Now get back over here and watch how to handle these, since you'll have to deal with them again eventually." Elana waved an arm impatiently.

A lot of the mob looked at us, then turned and just went rampaging down the street running perpendicular to us. They didn't seem to care whether they went right or left. I thought we'd be in the clear, until Sal'Ris gave a particularly foul Batarian oath under her breath. "Krogan, straight ahead. Three of them, halfway down the street.

Elana raised her scoped rifle and said, "Dark armor, unmarked. Not Blood Pack, but not Hunters either. Probably independent. Looks like half a dozen Batarians with them, mixed in with the crowd. Gear doesn't look expensive, but it's not as pathetic as the rest." The woman barked an order into her omnitool in an Asari dialect that my helmet's translator had a hard time keeping up with then turned back to me. "Don't bother shooting at Krogan with that thing. It's no Carnifex, and I wouldn't even trust those high-priced paperweights against a Krogan. If it comes down to it go after the Batarians, that thing should be able to break their shields as long as you can hit them, and I'll go in for the kill."

As the two Asari prepped for combat, I turned to Sal'Ris. "The majority of the group is Batarian. Odds are most of them are lowborn, what are the odds you could tell them off?"

She turned and looked at the group, thinking. "If they're recent exiles then they won't dare to raise a hand against a Reyja'Krem without provocation. Those Krogan won't stop, though."

"It would be thirteen of us against three of them if the Batarians stop."

She nodded. "I'll try."

I briefed the Asari on our plan, and they tentatively agreed to attempt it. They obviously didn't think it would work. Once it was clear that they weren't going to divert around us, the Batarian stepped up and began shouting in highborn.

"Stop!" Her voice cut through the general noise of the riot. Every Batarian in the crowd at least twitched, a lot actually stopping. Even I flinched. "This shop is under the protection of Reyja'Krem ul Rakan. Leave, or face the wrath of the Pillars."

The Batarians stopped, looking around hesitantly and fingering their guns. The Krogan just laughed, raising his shotgun and firing. The shot pattered off Irina's projected barrier.

"Those who raise their hand against those above their station will fall." With that, she vanished in a blur of blue right, reappearing with her hand buried in the faceplate of the offending Krogan.


	4. Chapter Three - Opening Day

_Chapter Three - Opening Day_

The Krogan roared in pain, trying to bring his shotgun around to knock his attacker away. Up close, and even with pouring blood from a smashed dimple in his face, the massive alien both looked and sounded terrifying. Before he could do anything to stop her, the towering thug found a shotgun shoved through the hole in his armor and discharged into his head. Not even a Krogan could survive that, and the body collapsed a few seconds later, opening the Reyja'Krem up to the dual blasts from her other two opponents.

She wasn't there anymore, though, a shorter biotic charge carrying her in between them. A knife was suddenly in her hand from some hidden sheath, and I found myself blinking as it actually cut a bleeding gouge across the left arm of the Krogan on her right. The knife had to have gone halfway through his arm with almost no resistance, and I didn't know of any metal that could do that.

Elana just hummed. "Interesting. You seem to have had good choice in picking your hire, but you might want to watch your back around her."

I took my eyes off the fight. Sal'Ris didn't even seem to be scared as she darted around everyone, slashing at one Krogan and keeping his bulk between her and the other. At first the cuts stopped bleeding after about thirty seconds, but as she went they started staying open, chunks of flesh literally falling away in a geyser of orange blood. It was horrifying. "What do you mean?"

"That's a vibroknife. SIU issue. They keep those things on a genetic lock for high-ranking officers and assassins." She paused and then elaborated, "That knife could cut a frigate in half if you gave her enough time. Someone like her almost never gets exiled, much less gets to keep something that expensive. Stay alert."

I nodded. Of course the person I hired and would be living with had to be from a group that everyone on my colony had been terrified of, which was known for ruining anyone who stood against the Hegemony. She hadn't given me any reason not to trust her, yet, and she was risking her life to protect my store now.

Another shotgun blast, a lighter one from Sal'Ris rather than the thunder of the Krogan guns, signaled the death of another alien. The third found himself disarmed by a biotic throw, then knocked down by a biotically-assisted tackle, three shotgun blasts perforating his own helmet. The Batarians stood around the dead bodies, then as one tilted their heads as far left and forwards as their necks would allow. The expression of total shame.

"This place and its owner are under my protection. Do not dishonor its name. You may leave, for you showed better judgment than these fools, but you are not to return without intention to do honest business."

The Batarians scurried off after that, practically sprinting, and I had to close my eyes as they opened fire on the mob in front of them when they couldn't get through. The sprays of red, orange, and blue blood still stained the inside of my eyelids, though. When I left this station, IF I left this station, I wouldn't be the same person anymore. I didn't even realize that Sal'Ris had come back in until Irina clapped me on the shoulder and took me up to the living area.

The mob was still there, but everyone took a much wider berth around us after seeing the three mutilated Krogan corpses on our doorstep. At least, that's what Elana told me. I just stayed inside and talked with Irina about what it was like growing up on a backwater colony in the Dark Rim. I had to stop a few times when the hurt was still too raw, like when I told her about Naliin and explained the runes on my cane. When I did she told me about living on Illium as the youngest of a single mother with three daughters barely two years apart in age, something almost unheard of among Asari.

Sal'Ris mostly just sat and listened, taking her helmet off halfway through when I asked if I could get her a glass of water while I was up. I couldn't help but notice how her ears were larger than Lilush's had been, coming to a fine point. The only words she actually said after coming inside that day were about how she didn't get outside or talk to people much growing up. We didn't ask any more.

* * *

An eight hour shift later, the Asari were up in the living area playing cards, with a makeshift intercom ready to call them down if anything went wrong. I was behind the armored divider, most of the inventory neatly laid out next to me. Sal'Ris, in full armor that I'd patched up to look more presentable, was wandering along the left side of the room. We'd decided to mark both her armor and mine with three concentric pentagons of columns on the chestplate. It tied in with the name of the store, "Strength of the Pillars".

I was in full armor too, just to be on the safe side. It also meant that people would assume I was a Batarian, which could lead to a few obstacles, but I had my reasons for wanting to further that impression. My Asari guards and the exiled noble currently standing in the center of the four pedestal displays hadn't questioned me, something I was grateful for.

It had been a bare few minutes since we'd switched the sign on, the additional script saying in several languages which shifts we were open, so nobody had come in yet. It would probably be another ten or fifteen minutes before any of the traffic going to or from Doru decided to stop in. We were prepared in case any of the small gangs and mercenary groups tried to demand protection money, but after seeing Sal'Ris yesterday I wasn't really worried about that anymore.

The first person to walk in was a Turian with a scarred fringe and a missing mandible. He was in fairly good armor for this station, but the gun he had didn't seem too impressive. Maybe we could fix that.

"This place is new isn't it? I don't remember seeing it before." He was conversational as he browsed the left-hand side of the room, from my perspective, checking the five different models of pistols there. There wasn't much difference between them, but they were all from Hahne-Kehdar. The majority of the stock were civilian models, but we had a few Kesslers included in the shipment. The shotguns on the other wall were of a similar composition.

"It is. We've only just opened. I apologize for the rather limited nature of our stock; we'll be expanding as the funds to purchase more inventory become available."

His wandering led him to the shotguns next, but he didn't go further than checking the statistics for each gun. "Shame." His eyes fell on the pistol on my Batarian guard's hip. "That doesn't look like a stock model. Do you have any of those?"

"It's not stock. That pistol is one of seven currently in existence, and is a custom design of my own devising. They are still in prototyping phases, and I have no wish for an unseen flaw to harm any of my esteemed customers."

He trilled with interest. "So you're saying that theoretically I could purchase one?"

"Yes, if you wished. The price would be twice that of the Kessler, at two thousand credits, but I think that you might be satisfied. It would come with free servicing for any errors you encounter, due to its nature as a prototype."

I listed off the statistics of one of the three extra models I'd made over the last couple of shifts. It was actually relaxing to put the parts together, and I realized that when I was out of my armor I made a lot fewer stupid mistakes. I still had the problem with too many fingers for my muscle memory to work right, though. Which was frustrating and the reason for a few small bandages on each hand. It turned out that medigel was really expensive, so this worked better.

It wasn't as reliable, sleek, or safe as mass-produced models from civilized space, but the stats impressed the alien enough that he paid the asking price without haggling. If I'd actually been Batarian, that would have been an insult. At least to a traditionalist, anyway. But my price had been fair from the beginning, instead of raised to encourage negotiations, so I was pleasantly surprised.

There was a warm feeling in my gut as he walked away. I didn't know what he'd use the gun for and I didn't want to. To know that the first person I ever sold anything to chose my own design over that of a company that supplied the entire Alliance military was satisfying. Extremely so. I was smiling under my helmet as he left and we went back to waiting.

After four hours of sitting there that satisfaction was gone. My back hurt, I was bored out of my mind, and not even exchanging messages with Mellaris while she lay in bed on Xentha could help. It was honestly a miracle that she was alive, even though her spine had been cleanly severed by the bullet that hit her. She was paralyzed essentially from just below her lungs down, and the surgery that could fix it would cost over a million credits. While Cessa had paid initially for her care at the hospital on the most civilized world in the deep Terminus, that was it. It was up to me to pay for her care and hopefully her surgery.

We'd just closed temporarily to eat when she stopped answering, finally asleep, and I could take off my helmet. The cheap armor I'd gotten wasn't climate controlled, or at least the system didn't work, so it was really nice to finally get out of the sweltering piece of shit and feel the slowly circulating air of our living area brush against my sweat-matted hair. Sal'Ris paused with a bite of some type of sandwich halfway to her mouth, all four of her eyes blinking at me.

"Uh, why are you looking at me like I just grew a second head?" Four unblinking eyes staring straight at me was uncomfortable and brought up flashes of seeing the Prothean die in my memories.

Her words were like something a kid would ask. "What happened to your fur?"

"You mean my hair?" I grimaced as I brushed the strands of it that were stuck to my forehead back. I hated the feeling of sweaty hair and clammy skin. I realized what she meant as I shook my head some to get it out of the neck joint of my armor. It was all frizzed out. "Oh. It does this when it's humid. I guess I really was sweating if it got this bad."

"How does it do that?"

I shrugged. "I have no idea. It's just something that happens when it gets this long. It's not conscious; hair isn't alive, we can't make it do anything."

The rest of the meal went on in silence, until I had to shove the unruly mane that was my shoulder-length hair back into my armor. I'd probably need to cut it soon. It would be the first time I'd had to do it myself, but I was sure I couldn't trust anyone to do it here on Omega.

We'd only just unlocked the door when a group of six people swaggered in. The only one in armor, which looked like it would turn to dust in a light breeze, was the leader. A hook-nosed human with greasy hair and skin that looked like an erupting volcano, he didn't even have a helmet on. The Asari were picking up a shipment from the docks down in Doru for me, but I doubted we'd have a problem handling this.

The barrier in front of me squealed as I slid an extra sheet of bulletproof glass over the perforated section that I spoke through. I could see my guard surreptitiously undoing the safety on her shotgun, a feature that I'd insisted she actually use while indoors. Their boss sauntered up to the table directly across from me without saying a word, while his equally-greasy goons started taking the shotguns and pistols off the wall.

"Unless you're planning to shell out the credits, I would..." He cut me off as soon as the crappy translator in his ear started working, slamming his hands down on the black counter. They left a smear.

"Now, listen here you squints, this is how it's going to happen," I grimaced as specks of liquid splattered the glass while he spoke. "You're in our territory, which means you're going to pay us fifty-thousand credits and half your inventory, or we kill you both and take it all."

My heart was hammering in my chest as I pulled the pistol on my hip up into my hand. Sal'Ris was just looking at me, waiting for permission to shoot. I had to at least try to make this bloodless though.

My response was in English, but it didn't feel like me speaking. "You and your shabby little gang will leave if you know what's good for you. You aren't the Hunters of Shadow, and they control this section of Fumi. Now get out of my sight before my associate carves you into bite-sized chunks for the next Krogan that passes through."

The man practically growled, and I saw one of his lackeys raise the shotgun he'd taken off the wall in Sal'Ris's direction. The idiots were dumb enough to think we'd leave working guns out where anyone could touch them. I sighed and closed my eyes even as the man pounded his fist against the protective barrier.

"Reyja'Krem, you may fire at will."

Two shotgun blasts, a spattering of lighter shots, and some sickening crunches later, and I knew it was done. This was followed by the chime of the door opening.

Before I could tell her to clean up the mess, or even curse at how the next set of customers had chosen now to arrive, a deep rumbling voice cut in, "I see you finished those two-bit charlatans before we got here."

I looked up, flinching slightly at the sight of blood and body parts spattered everywhere, to see a Krogan much bigger than the three yesterday, at least in perspective. He had no helmet on, but I really doubted that he needed it. The crest on his skull seemed strong enough to stop a shotgun blast. Him, and the three heavily-armed Turians behind him, were in matte black armor with a bow-bearing figure next to a reflective black patch. The Hunters of Shadow.

"Well, that means a bit less of a bounty for us, but I have to say that you're an efficient one, Batarian." He dipped his head at her. "I don't see such elegant carnage very often, even from one with the Soulfire. Need any help cleaning up?"

"If you wouldn't mind. This is our opening day and I'd rather not have the place full of corpses." After I finished the Krogan told his followers to take them to some dumping area. Sal'Ris followed. "So, you were here following them?"

"They'd been hassling a few people who pay for our protection. So we were going to smash them to make an example." He sniffed and walked forward, tracking blood up closer to my counter. "I'm assuming you don't intend to pay for such, after how efficient your helper was?"

"Not in the foreseeable future. And if your people try to demand it, you'll end up like the three Krogan we had to kill during the riot earlier."

He leaned forward, my counter creaking under his weight. "And if I broke through this little divider and threatened to bite your squishy little head off unless you paid us?"

I was shaking inside, my armor, but it didn't show. I knew I had to try to act calm and confident. Strength, even the illusion of it, went a long way here. But that didn't explain the almost arrogant tone I replied in. It didn't even feel like me speaking. "I'd shoot you as many times as I could and overload my pistol so the heatsinks would blow up and leave you with some scars you wouldn't regenerate for awhile."

He laughed and leaned back, flashing me a toothy grin. "You've got guts. I like that." My omnitool pinged as he sent his contact information to me. "If you've got a good fight or anything special to sell, you can call on me. Don't see many humans brave enough to stand up to me. I'll be sure to send the runts Juyl recruits here."

I nodded. It felt like some ice faded out of my veins as I replied, the back of my mind tingling with satisfaction or something. "Just make sure they keep their drugs away. I know that's your gang's main scheme."

He shrugged and gave another predatory grin. "Sure."

We didn't shake hands or anything, and as soon as his Turians got back they left. It was then that I could finally relax and let out a big breath, looking down at my omnitool to see his name. Urdnot Zakal.

* * *

"You mean to say you stood up to a Krogan by yourself?" Irina's eyes seemed to get bigger than I'd thought possible as she spoke.

The shop was closed for the night shift, and I was sprawled out on the shorter of the two couches. She and her companions had only just arrived with my last shipment, for the immediate future anyway, and would be leaving in about fifteen minutes. I'd already given them their payment, officially clearing out the majority of my finances, and everyone was just being lazy now.

"More like the Krogan died laughing at the human with the gimp leg trying to threaten him." One of the two I'd barely spoken to commented. A pained grunt followed as Elana slapped her on the back of the head for being rude.

A bit of small talk and an exchange of information later, and it was just me and the Batarian in the building. We were watching one of the three actual news stations based on Omega, the Asari anchor talking about how tensions were stirring in the Terminus and about some Turian warlord dying and an Asari named T'Ravt taking over his territory.

I hadn't done much actual work, but I was mentally exhausted. "We need to find some more help. I don't know how to, though; I can't afford another mercenary like you yet."

Sal'Ris sounded just as tired as I was. "You could always buy a slave."

She practically spat the last word. I grimaced, glad she couldn't see my face. "I don't like the thought of owning someone." It made me sick.

"Then you don't approve of slavery?"

"I approve of it the way the Pillars outline it. As a punishment for criminals, not as a way of tormenting innocents and making money off of kidnapping." In other words, I was more committed to and observant of the Pillars of Strength than most Batarians.

She just grunted. The noise, and creak of plastic as she shifted on her own couch, hinted at a story that might not be pleasant to hear.

"I guess we could go look tomorrow, though. We could just buy someone and then free them to work for us." I was really squeamish at the thought of it. But it really was the best way.

Sal'Ris seemed silent and just stared unseeingly at the wall after that, and eventually I walked back to my room, collapsed on the bed, and promptly passed out.

* * *

 _I was alone. All around me waving grasses rustled in a nighttime breeze, the wind itself warm and laden with the scent of the glowing flowers that sprinkled the field. Three moons spiraled through the sky above, green, yellow, and crimson surfaces glinting alongside the stars._

 _To my left stretched a vast expanse of desert, and to my right lay the low mouth of my workshop. I would never see it again, as I was forced to evacuate during the Reaper's inevitable advance. The Mass Relays were shutdown, but we had multiple fallbacks setup in this cluster. That's what Javik had said. I was too valuable to leave behind._

 _Maybe I wasn't as alone as I felt. The other Prothean set his hand on my shoulder, understanding my reluctance._

 _"I will be the fist of our people, brother. We will have Vengeance."_

 _I nodded, my eyes blinking in sequence as the workshop sealed itself, sinking in secret beneath the ground. "And mine will be the hand to forge our blade."_


	5. Chapter Four - The Desperate Mother

_The Desperate Mother_

The store was closed and locked, and we didn't intend to be gone for more than two hours. The stock was sealed in the back, and I had a modified heatsink set up as an improvised grenade that would go of if anyone but me or Sal'Ris tried to go in. I think. I was pretty sure it wouldn't blow up randomly, but the code was sketchy, at best. But the plans were free on the extranet, so I couldn't complain.

We were following a map of Fumi to the main lift, on the edge of the Core shaft that Aria kept sealed, that would take us up to Tuhi. I was apprehensive, to say the least, about going to the center of Omega's slaving industry, and consequently the entire Terminus. I might have seen a lot on this station so far, but the brutality and indecency I'd seen so far would be nothing compared to the slave markets. When people started treating other people like livestock sickening things would happen.

With just the two of us, and me limping along on my cane, there were plenty of disreputable characters eyeing us up. Some had exceedingly visible weapons, but that was normal. The long coats some of them had probably hid drugs of questionable safety, and at least a few Batarian hookers looked at us. Our armor didn't really hint that my partner was a female, and they could tell that she was highborn by the way she carried herself. But nobody approached, so we proceeded unimpeded.

We were almost to the lift and all around us were towering skyscrapers that varied from ancient Turian and Asari designs to just blocky, cobbled together spires. We could see them from the shop, but this close the view was astonishing. They weren't well maintained, most of them decrepit and filthy with shattered windows, but to someone from a colony where the tallest building was a three-story town hall made of stacked modules they were amazing.

Even Horizon, at least the town I'd been in, didn't have this large of a concentration of massive buildings. They'd had no real need, being a new colony with practically unlimited space to build on. Omega didn't have that, and was a huge ramshackle collection of dozens of different cultures and time periods trying to build and maintain it. It was mind-boggling, really, to even think about how vast the galaxy was. I was barely even a speck of dust. No one person really mattered to the galaxy. It would go on no matter what. We'd each see just a tiny sliver of our world, and all we did would only really touch a few other specks. But to them an act of kindness could mean everything. So it would be worth it to try to improve someone's life.

At least, that's what I kept telling myself when I thought of how many people would die because of the guns I sold.

The terrible radio built into my suit crackled as Sal'Ris's voice came through, "Human. Focus."

I realized we were at the lift and flushed under my helmet. I hadn't even noticed and had almost blundered into a Krogan. We were just about to get onto the massive flat elevator, obviously one designed for cargo, when I heard something that made me hesitate and put out an arm to stop my guard. A few aliens behind us hissed and muttered insults about our mothers as they bumped into us, but they didn't try anything.

"Do you hear that?" It was hard to hear over the background, but it sounded like crying. It was too high pitched to be an adult.

She growled in irritation. "Hear what?"

"Crying. It...it sounds like a kid."

We pushed off, breaking through the crowd and trying to track the noise. I almost lost it twice, but then it started getting louder and I followed it halfway down a deserted side street. It was coming from the mouth of an ally that cut diagonally behind a building. Piles of rubbish blocked most of it, but I could just make out two figures back in. One was Turian, but I couldn't tell what species the other was. The child was nowhere in sight, and at first I thought the two were hurting one. Then I saw the Turian push the other against the wall, something clinking as a reflection of one of the lights on the underside of the next level glinted off a visor.

That was when I realized it was a Quarian, the first I'd ever seen in person. My fingers itched and the my hand fell to my pistol, squeezing the grip, as I heard the Turian's rasping voice.

"Bitch!" He was growling, and obviously drunk from the way his speech slurred and his mandibles hung slack. "You take that fancy little suit there for your rotten brat of a kid, and promise to pay me. Right? You swore on your spirits-damned ancestors."

The woman shrieked as he did something. I was shaking now. "P-please! Just give me more time!"

He stopped for a second, but I could tell by his face that he wasn't really considering it. He was just taunting her. He was a monster.

"Time? You've had a week, Bitch, and you haven't gotten me a single credit." One of his clawed hands was on her throat now.

She wasn't choking, yet, I guessed because of the thick fabric of her suit. But her voice was harried and panicked as she gasped out, "I needed what I had for food! And nobody wants to hire me!"

She started pawing at the hand around her neck then. "Of course they won't. Because you're just a sneakthief beggar who thinks they can get anything from anyone just because of their pathetic bodies." Sal'Ris put a hand on my shoulder and I shook it off as I started walking forward. I didn't know what I was going to do but I absolutely couldn't stay still as he kept going, "Since you couldn't pay me back you're _mine_ now. And I know juuuuuuuust the people who'll pay big bucks to fuck a Quarian."

He laughed, the trill harsh and mucousy. There were tears in my eyes now.

"You'll survive it of course. You Terminus stock are so much sturdier than those weaklings that die if you even sneeze at them." He leaned forward and sneered. "Your daughter won't..."

He didn't get a chance to finish. The first bullet missed, but startled him as he jolted away from the Quarian. The second and third missed too. The fourth clipped his mandible which flew off in a spray of blood as he started shrieking. The fifth, sixth, and seventh stitched a line along his shoulder, the eighth leaving the limb dangling by the remaining threads of his plates. The ninth drilled through one of his eyes , an explosion of blood, bone, and brain matter, dousing the area behind him. The tenth, eleventh, and twelfth smashed what was left of his face into an unrecognizable mass as he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

I saw it almost in slow motion, the only sound not muted being the thunder of blood in my ears. I was shaking and sweating, and it took a moment for me to realize that my arms were extended, clutching my pistol, the barrel trembling and lined up with where the Turian had stood. My stomach fell out from under me as the pistol fell to the ground, its heat sinks sizzling as they landed on the damp trash. I didn't manage to even undo my visor before my breakfast filled my helmet.

I didn't know how long it took for me to calm down and get at least partly clean, the fumes were still burning my nose even as I braved the sickening air of Omega to try to air out my helmet. Even through the miasma of refuse in the alleyway I could smell the metallic tang of copper. Turian blood.

The Quarian and her child, a small slip of a thing who barely stood higher than my waist, hadn't run off. I was honestly surprised by that, though the mother had moved her daughter away from the corpse I'd made. The thought made me shudder. Just a few minutes ago he'd been a alive. A monster, a freak, and a criminal, but alive. He could move and think and breathe. He might have a family or friends who would be waiting for him to come home, but he never would. Because of me.

When I looked up the Quarian was staring me, two barely visible eyes against the scratched surface of her faceplate. I had no idea how to read her posture, but her hands were clutching the still lightly-sniffling child hard enough that the younger one's suit was dimpled in at the shoulder.

"I...I'm sorry." That was all I could think of to say, especially with Sal'Ris staying silent behind me.

"Why?" Her voice was papery and weak. Her response was in Turian, which I promptly switched to, to avoid translators. "You saved me and my daughter."

"I-I killed a man in front of you two." I closed my eyes and shook my head, ashamed. "I traumatized your daughter."

She actually laughed, the sound like a tinkling bell, but I could see that she was shaking too. "No more than that dead _bosh'tet_ did. And unlike him you did it to make sure we'd both stay alive and unhurt."

"It's the least I could do. This station...it tests your morals, your ethics. But I won't let it break me, and I won't let it break you either."

She relaxed a little, flicking nervous looks at Sal'Ris. She did make an imposing figure, and after seeing this I was sure that the pair of them had been on the receiving end of way too much abuse. Batarians here, unlike the ones I'd grown up with, were extremely crude and impolite. From what I'd been told, though I hadn't seen it until today, Quarians were mistreated, distrusted, and unwelcome practically everywhere. It was really unfair.

"That's a better outlook than almost everyone here," her voice was quiet as the little alien at her feet whispered something in another language. My translator had shorted out when I threw up so I couldn't hear it. "Nia wants to say thank you."

I didn't know how to respond. We stood there awkwardly for almost a minute because of that before I said, "I'm sorry that I haven't been at my best." I gestured down at the pile of vomit on the ground.

She laughed again and waved her hand around. "We haven't been either. That dead _bosh'tet_ got a suit for Nia as soon as we landed here, but he wanted thousands of credits by today. It's just not possible, but I had to promise to get it to him or Nia would have died days ago. I had to sell both of our breathers to even feed her. I don't know what would've happened if you hadn't come along. I..."

I cut her off. She was starting to shake again. "It didn't happen, and I did come along. No sense thinking on stuff like that, it'll just upset you." I paused and smiled, the gesture visible since my visor was still up. "Are you two alright now?"

"As much as we can be after that and sleeping in an alley scared for our lives for seven whole days." Her voice was tired now and her shoulders drooped. "I have no idea what we're going to do. Someone else like him will come along and I doubt anyone else will try to save us."

That gave me an idea. "What would you say if I offered you a job?"

"R-really?" She perked up, almost jumping, and the sudden about-face made me chuckle. "You'd do that for us?"

I nodded. "A job and a place to live, if you want it."

She was trying really hard to reign herself in, I could tell. She didn't want to get her hopes dashed, I assumed, and I couldn't blame her. "What's the job?"

"Mostly helping out at my store. I opened a gunshop recently on the edge of the district, and with just me and Sal'Ris it's really hard to stay open. All I'd really need you to do would be swapping shifts with me behind the armored counter. I can't stay there for eight hours at a time."

She didn't reply, so I explained, "Your daughter could stay up in the living quarters while you worked, and there's no way that anyone could get in and hurt you or her. If you have any skill with it I wouldn't mind a helper for when I'm working on armor or other projects. My leg will never really be able to support me again, and it's tough to move around to work."

"That," her voice caught in her throat, "that sounds like a wonderful offer."

"So you accept?" She nodded, and I explained that there wouldn't be all that much pay, in terms of credits, but that I'd cover the cost of any food, medical care, or anything else that her or her daughter needed. She was eager to follow us back, completely trusting me. It made me both glad that I was the one to come along and save her, and depressed that nobody else would have tried, and even if they had they would have taken advantage of her afterwards.

We got even more looks as we came back, and Sal'Ris had to fire off a shot into the air to scare away a particularly menacing group of ragged Turians. They shrank back into the alleys afterwards, and nobody was too serious about attacking us for the rest of the trip. I made sure that everyone stayed well back as I opened the door, in case my booby trap malfunctioned, and let out a sigh of relief as it was sitting there like a rock.

I canceled out the code I'd patched into it sloppily, and then removed the heatsinks just to be safe. I piled it in a heap in the back of the room after we ushered in the two Quarians, and then stood there after the door cloed and locked. Sal'Ris was waiting too, seemingly anticipating how I'd wanted to talk. She didn't rush me, just watching through her now-raised faceplate.

"I-I can't believe I killed that man."

"He was your first, wasn't he?" I nodded. "I hate to say it, but it gets so much easier."

My stomach lurched. That was not something I liked hearing. I knew I employed a killer but I didn't like being reminded of it. "I should have tried talking to him first."

"That man was a pimp and a pedophile. He made his living off the backs of the weak and downtrodden. I'm glad that you killed him."

"Pillar of Strength; Those with strength bear a duty to protect those without." The words didn't really calm me much as they slipped off my tongue.

"Pillar of Kin; Treat the children of those beneath you as though they were your own." Sal'Ris almost seemed gentle as she spoke, one of her elfin ears flicking slightly.

"Pillar of Strength; Those who threaten the youth threaten the fabric of the future, and must be destroyed before they destroy it." We both said it at the same time, my eyes locked with her upper set.

I sighed and buried my face in my hands. "I feel so dirty."

"Go, then. Shower. You can wash off the blood and soothe the body, but the soul only heals with time." She was speaking from experience. Something just gave me that impression. I gave her a last tired smile and then followed her advice.

* * *

"You sure you'll be fine?" I was nursing a small headache from the lack of the caffeine I'd gotten addicted to on Horizon, but nothing debilitating like I usually had to deal with. Mena'Zala, the Quarian mother I'd rescued, was seated in my usual spot, preparing for her first shift. It had been a slow day so far, and she'd watched me work for the last hour, so I was fairly sure she could handle it. And if not Sal'Ris was on guard in the display area. I really didn't get how she could spend so much time standing and not get bored or have her legs hurt, ot anything like that. But she never complained, so I was fairly sure she was ok with it.

"Yes Sir!" She was way too enthusiastic for someone about to sit in a chair for four hours. "Just make sure Nia doesn't break anything ok? I don't want her to damage any of your things."

I shook my head, smiling slightly, not that she could see it. "Mena, for the last time, it's fine even if she does. We'll have plenty of credits, and kids will be kids. I know that I was a little devil when I was born."

She settled down and looked at the little omniregister I had to handle transactions instead of using my personal accounts. That was the sign for me to go upstairs and fiddle in the actual, paper journal I'd had delivered with my last shipment. It meant that nobody would be able to hack into my designs, but also meant hand-programming them into the machine and running conversions on paper, in my head, or separately on my omnitool.

There were a few rough sketches of designs that didn't show up much in my memory unless something reminded me, but the most detailed was something I'd had popping up consistently for the last two days. It was a shotgun that fired semi-molten charged rounds that splattered into plasma when they hit kinetic barriers. A brutal weapon that apparently was a design from before the war the memories in my head had lived through, which functioned fairly well as an all-around intimidation and execution weapon. It wasn't good at leaving survivors. Which meant it would sell well here, even though the thought of what it would be used for sickened me.

But the alien memories in my head wanted it made, so, I would make it. It was a good distraction, and a good way to make credits. If I could work out how to make the gun not melt or explode without the Prothean insulators that didn't exist anymore. I knew their chemical formulas, thanks to the unnerving amount of detail that the dead alien in my head had been forced to memorize growing up, but had no real way to make them with what I had on hand.

A way that could work, but would take a lot of effort to make, would be to use the entire barrel as a heatsink. It wouldn't melt, but there would maybe be a shot every ten or fifteen seconds, at best, without an external coolant feed. The ammo block was another problem, since it would be both expensive and difficult to make a design that would use gallium or mercury like some of the Prothean designs had.

A random squeal of static followed a high-pitched ululating roar sent my pen skidding across the paper as I jolted, looking up to see the projected screen on the wall flickering between the cartoon we'd had playing for Nia and a crudely-rendered alien face, a species that the memories in my head told me was Quarian. The face seemed to be looking around, panicked, before its mouth opened in a digital scream as it faded away.

The girl, sitting next to the projector, looked up at me. "Oops."


	6. Chapter Five - Contact Established

_Chapter Five - Contact Established_

A week passed since the incident with the television, which Mena had promptly run up and shut down. She'd explained how fter her husband died in a skirmish with the Blood Pack, the woman had deserted with her daughter and come here. She apologized profusely for the badly corrupted VI version of her dead husband that the girl had tried programming, an aching and wistful tone in her voice as she purged the coding from the projector and remotely disabled her daughter's omnitool as a punishment.

The shop had been doing rather well, and we'd relaxed the policy of having a guard out in the front room. That came after Urdnot Zakal, apparently the leader of a rather well-known mercenary unit on a long-term security contract as enforcers for the Hunters of Shadow, had put out that the store was under his protection. And promptly eviscerated a Batarian that tried the hack the door during the night cycle.

I'd spent most of my shift behind the counter double-checking the inventory order to replenish our stock and funneling a small bit of the profits, which came from my share rather than what went back into the store directly, into payments for Mellaris' treatment and more raw materials. Half of the excess above what we needed to get two more crates of guns was put aside in chits that Mena encrypted, saving up for an armor-grade industrial fabricator and its associated tools.

The door opened right after I submitted the order, and a very human-looking suit of armor walked in. Its tan surface was painted with haphazard, almost ragged, streaks of white paint, which crossed the clear visor. I perked up at seeing that, recognizing it as the mark of one of the up-and-coming gangs on the station. He bypassed the displays and walked straight up to me, purpose obvious in each step.

"You are the proprietor of this establishment, correct?" He spoke in English, and his eyes were locked onto my faceplate.

"I am he, yes."

"You are Human." His voice was flat and monotone. It was unnerving.

"I am."

"Your shop has a _Batarian,_ -" he practically growled out the species,"-name. Why?"

"It appeals to the majority of the clientele on this station, and the traditions behind their religion are not so crass as the actions of disreputable elements of the Terminus population would make them out to be."

He nodded slightly, and I internally sighed in relief. I knew that the White Tigers had an extreme racial bias. After reading about the sickening actions that Batarian pirates committed I had cried. But that had been back on Horizon, before the galaxy had even started to harden me. I couldn't condone them, but I was little better since I was selling weapons on a station where it was guaranteed at least one would take an innocent life. Even before I'd killed the Turian my hands were permanently stained with blood.

I blinked as the man tapped on the glass. He'd obviously been saying something while I was lost in thought. "I'm so sorry. I'm easily distracted by my thoughts; what was it that you said?"

"An acceptable reason. So you care little for the races you serve?"

"Groups that I am indebted to earn discounts, and those with good intentions would aid my conscience, but such are not required. Anyone willing to pay and refrain from beginning any type of conflict in the store is welcome"

"Your weapons are all of Human make?"

I nodded. "Those on display are by Hahne-Kedar, the same company that supplies the Alliance. Currently the only models in stock are civilian-grade pistols and low-end shotguns manufactured for self-defense. A new shipment of Kesslers and Storms will be arriving on a freighter in about four days, if the schedule they have is correct. We don't have the funds to purchase any further military grade models yet, but within the next few weeks that should change. I have the necessary permits to purchase them as well, with a permit to purchase their armor suits pending approval."

He made an almost purring noise. "To my knowledge you are one of a handful of armories with such means on this station. Our Packs would benefit greatly from reliable equipment at a price as fair as yours are said to be."

I nodded. "Those words flatter me greatly. You are welcome to peruse what is on display, or to send your members to do so themselves. I have more costly, but more powerful, custom designs on sale as well, which I have yet to receive a complaint about from the three who currently have the prototypes. They are on the low end of special-forces grade pistols, and come with guaranteed free service and repairs included."

He purred again and nodded. "You can expect our packs to filter in during the next few days. For now payment will be on an individual basis; we'll see if you might become a bulk supplier at a later date pending combat tests of your equipment to ensure quality."

The man turned and left after that without another word, ignoring my polite farewell. Something about him and the way he acted gave me the shivers, but I had to interact with them. It was part of my contract here, as I swapped my omnitool onto an encrypted link to the terminal I'd set up in my room. That terminal bounced it to a communications relay somewhere else on the station, then through high-security channels back to Horizon. That's how I was told it worked, anyway, and I had no idea where the message would go after that.

My sponsor had already been informed of the appreciated, but unasked for, contact with the Hunters and my hiring of two separate helpers. If I didn't screw up, contact with the White Tigers would achieve one of the main objectives I'd been given. The others would hopefully come in time, both those my sponsors had ordered and my own personal goals. Now I just had to keep my eyes open, not get shot, and make money.

* * *

A few hours later I settled into my room for one of the rare video calls with Mellaris after sending that out, Sal'Ris taking my place in the store. The Turian didn't really like letting me see her like she was, wasting away in a medical unit unable to move anything but her arms. She was ashamed, even though I swore on multiple occasions that I only thought more of her for it.

I smiled when her face flickered up on the holoprojector I'd installed in here. The connection was a bit finnicky, but Aria at least maintained a good FTL comm buoy for her system, and left it free of charge for slightly-unreliable speeds. The image of her was a little grainy, but that meant there was barely any delay since it didn't take as much space in the datastream.

Her mandibles flared in greeting as she saw me. "So, sick of that shithole of a station yet?"

I laughed. "It smells worse than the bathroom at your house did, and the scenery leaves a lot to be desired, but we're doing some good business here. I'll be able to start working on armor sometime next month probably."

She chuckled. "Father would be proud of you. He always thought of you as the son he never had."

My smile faltered at that. "I doubt it."

She shook her head vehemently. "He really did. If he hadn't thought of you as part of the family he probably would have tried to get us together." I blinked, blushing, and her face showed a bit of embarrassment. She hadn't meant to say that much. "I mean, he liked you a lot more than the louts who tried to get me in their nests. That's what I meant."

"Why would he be proud of someone selling guns to killers for money?" I put my head in my hands, unable to meet her eyes. "Of someone who killed a man, who's had over a dozen die because of his presence on this station?"

Her voice was softer, soothing, as she replied, "Selos, Father was a pirate. So were your parents. Everyone on the colony was. They'd all killed people, but that didn't make them bad people. They did it because they had to, because it was the only option left, because they wanted to protect and provide for their friends and families."

I hadn't talked about what had happened with anything but Sal'Ris, and even then the Batarian hadn't said much. I'd been bottling it up all week and it just...came out. "The woman I hired for security killed three Krogan the second day I was here. Their lackeys killed dozens just trying to get out of the mob and escape. She tore six people apart because I told her to. I couldn't even watch...but then I shot a Turian nine times in front of a little girl."

I was crying. It wasn't something I did very often, but I couldn't stop myself now. I couldn't make myself look at her and see the disappointment that I knew would be there, the disgust at what I'd done and what I'd caused. It was all that I deserved.

"Selos." Her voice was stern now. Like steel. "Selos, look at me. Now."

I raised my eyes just enough that, through the warping bubbles of my tears, I could see her face.

"It's. Not. Your. Fault. I know you; you wouldn't do any of that without a good reason." The image shook as she shifted, leaning closer. "You're on Omega. Everyone said that it was a shithole at best, and that people there would sooner kill you than look at you. The ones you and your employee killed, they were trying to hurt or rob you. That's their fault. And you can't be held responsible for what some spirits-damned bastards did in front of you."

My response was a whisper, just barely loud enough for her to hear it. "She was a little Quarian girl. Her mother was in debt to the Turian, but couldn't pay. He-he was going to rape her. Whore her out. And then do the same to the girl. I-I didn't even know I was doing it. I missed the first three shots and then he was dead."

Mellaris blinked. "Father would be proud. So would your parents. You got us off the planet so we didn't all die. You stood up for yourself and your profession. Not just that, you saved someone else from a fate worse than death."

"They're dead because of me."

"That doesn't matter. You couldn't have known what would happen, and we'd all have done it. There's nothing wrong with what you did. Nothing wrong with _you_."

"I...thank you." I didn't quite believe her yet. But, it was good to get it off my chest. I felt lighter, now, though my fingers and toes were tingling from crying. "I just don't know if I'm on the right path. I feel like I'm in over my head and my feet can't even find the ground."

"It's alright, Selos. You're doing the only things you know how to, and you're doing them well. The Spirits are smiling at you, and our parents are smiling right there with them."

The conversation ended not long after that and I stripped out of my armor before falling into bed and passing out.

* * *

The voice that came out of my omnitool was gruff and rumbling. "If this isn't important I'm going to find you and rip your spine out of your mouth before stabbing you with it. Now what do you want and how did you get this number."

I had to take a breath and steady my nerves before replying. I couldn't act scared or nervous. "Urdnot Zakal. How would you feel about testing out and buying a shotgun that shoots plasma through kinetic barriers."

"Ah. The squishy little gunsmith. Is this something you really have?" The voice softened some, a hearty guffaw coming through.

"I have a prototype that I'm not going to fire. You'll regenerate if it blows up on you, but I need my hands."

He laughed again. "Smart for a Human. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. You better live up to what you said." The call clicked as it disconnected and I swallowed nervously. The prototype I currently had had taken over a week and a half to work out and make even with the designs in my head already, and the part of me that resonated with them kept bringing up a line saying that a gunsmith who made something this low-quality would be shot in both feet and thrown to the Reapers. That's the word they used for the machines that haunted my nightmares.

It wasn't very pretty, the casing bulky and polished, packed with the magnets used to induce a charge that resonated with kinetic, though not biotic, barriers enough to turn the tungsten shards into plasma. On anything except cyclonic barriers, which were prohibitively expensive for personal or ship-grade use, the plasma would go through at a much slower pace. It wouldn't be enough to break through armor, but the plasma would spatter and start melting through the plating.

That was if it didn't explode when I fired it. I'd checked and double-checked everything, but the math didn't always hold up in reality, since parts weren't always as efficient as they were advertised, and our fabricator wasn't the best in terms of quality for the insulators and heatsinks that it made.

I was waiting outside the shop when the Krogan approached, grinning and baring his tombstone-sized teeth at me. He saw the gun and held his hand out to grab it while he grunted, "You know how to greet someone, Human. Now if only you had a hunk of Maw to share too."

I'd made the trigger guard big enough for a Krogan finger to fit in, but the gun still seemed tiny compared to him. He hefted it and sighted down the notch on the top of the barrel.

"The entire barrel is a heat sink, but I have connectors built to attach a coolant hose and get more reliable shots. Someone like you would definitely be able to carry the pack it would need in your armor. The pellets are semi-molten when they're fired, but don't vaporize until they hit a kinetic barrier and a miniature lightning-strike from the opposing charges turns them into plasma. Then they're splatter all over the person beneath them. Theoretically, they'd melt through a regular hardsuit in a minute, and heat-resistant ones in three if they don't get the plasma off and it doesn't cool down too quickly."

He nodded and I directed him to where I'd set up a barrier emitter in front of a sheet of scrap metal I'd drug off the street. I stepped back to a safe distance, asking, "How long does it take to regenerate plasma burns again?"

He grunted. "Too long. Better hope this little contraption of yours doesn't blow up or I'll expect more than you're intending to charge for this in compensation."

I shrugged. "I make no promises. I'm good at making things that destroy, just not so good at making them destroy the right stuff."

He laughed, and fired. In the blink of an eye the six pellets crossed the distance. The crack of them breaking mixed with the one from the gunshot, but the red streaks that had crossed the distance turned into tiny purple stars that splashed into small smears on the metal, which itself began to glow and run down in molten streaks. The plasma cooled, but the damage was done and the metal, about the size and thickness of the average breastplate, was left steaming, with holes burnt through it where two blobs had overlapped.

The Krogan and I both whistled. "I'm not going to ask where you got the idea for this, but I want it." I looked back at him and saw the barrel glowing a dull red itself as the sink inside it vented. He saw it too. "You mentioned coolant to let it do that more often?"

"Yeah. Any kind of industrial-grade coolant, or what they use on heavy machine guns and turrets, would work. I don't have the credits to get the materials now, but if you could get me them I could work it through your armor and get a reinforced hose to the gun so you could probably shoot three times faster."

He hummed. "Deal. How much for the work and the gun?"

I took a second to think. It was one-of-a-kind, something nobody else would have, and it was probably both revolutionary and highly illegal. Then again, I had no idea what the Salarians and Asari had cooked up in their labs. I just knew that nowhere on the extranet was functioning plasma weaponry a thing. Thermite-laced ammunition blocks were used for incendiary ammo, and tech mines used for incinerates used chemicals rather than plasma. So I could probably charge high-end, but I had no idea what was reasonable and what wasn't.

"How much are you willing to pay?"

"I don't know how reliable this will be and how good it will do against heavier armor, but this thing will burn through Vorcha like nothing else. I'll give you fifty-thousand for the gun and five to set up the coolant. Deal?"

I blinked. That was way more than I'd expected, but probably still too low for something revolutionary. But it paid twenty-times over for what it took me to make the gun. "Deal. I'll throw in any upgrades, ammo blocks, or replacement parts that it ever needs free of charge, too."

The man practically crushed my hand in his grip, but he seemed to be happy. So was I. "One of the grunts will bring my spare armor set over. Give him a list of what you'll need, and I'll have it picked up and delivered."

"Pleasure doing business with you."

He left the shotgun with me, after handing me a downpayment on the gun. I transferred the credits to the business's account, then dropped the chit into a small armor pouch meant to carry them. I could always refill it, and the credits wouldn't be traceable. You never knew when that would come in handy.

* * *

 ** _Author's Note: I apologize greatly for the delay; I had some things involving college to take care of, and technical difficulties in the form of a charger exploding. The regular update pace should be re-established soon._**

 ** _As some of the reviewers have stated, this story is very similar to my beta, KatKiller V,'s story "Another Realm: Ronin". This is intentional, and there is much overlap. In fact, we have decided that they are, initially, set in the same world; the events of his stories are running their course in the background of mine, and eventually the two will overlap in mine._**

 ** _Make no mistake, my story has no impact on his. And, as time goes on and my plot starts to unfold, there will be large divergences. I am not copying him, merely using his ideas as a platform from which to build mine._**


	7. Chapter Six - The Meeting, Awry

_Chapter Six - The Meeting, Awry_

I was _so_ not comfortable with this.

Sal'Ris had started to open up and talk to us more, and Mena had actually relaxed around us now and wasn't just a ball of nervous energy eager to prove her worth. And now it was all hanging in jeopardy because Zakal had suggested my shop for a meeting ground between two extremely hostile gangs. Without asking me, I might add. So now we had three hulking Krogan and five times their number in Turians and Humans inside my shop with over two dozen more outside. All in the best equipment their respective gangs had, which was more than enough to make me nervous by itself.

What made it worse was that the most massive Batarian I'd ever seen was sitting across from the largest human I'd ever seen, each looking like they wanted to rip the other's throat out. Outside the store were another few dozen assorted gang members that were practically itching to shoot at each other. The gangs didn't, and never had, gotten along well with each other, for both racial and territorial reasons. They were the main powers in central Doru and lower Fumi, respectively, and the reason for this meeting was to give them a peaceful resolution to the inevitable conflict, at least for the moment. Even though I was supposed to watch and report on them, gang politics were not my forte.

I had Sal'Ris next to me, carrying the second copy of the gun I'd rigged up for Zakal, hers more reinforced for melee and missing the coolant lines. Mena and Nia were upstairs, and we were watching to make sure that nobody went up there. The tables that Mena and I used for armor and miscellaneous projects were pushed to the side, newer ones set up with more luxurious chairs and some decent food and drinks set out, provided courtesy of Zakal. The hulking Krogan was next to me now, standing next to the chair I'd chosen to rest in.

The imposing figures in the center of the room were still talking well into the third hour of the meeting, and the argument nowhere near as vehement as it had been before. They'd managed to settle most of the conflicts now, and were dividing up the specifics. I had a small mic recording it, which both parties had agreed to so that neither of them could go back on their word. I'd also be sending my version back to my sponsor on Horizon.

Bored out of my mind for the moment, I turned to the Zakal. "You owe me for this. And I'm not just talking credits."

He grunted. "Your place was the best neutral ground, and both of them saw what this little Star-Shooter you have can do. They won't try anything here and you're getting paid, don't act like the credits aren't enough."

I rolled my eyes. "You didn't even ask me first. I want the impact driver from one of those old hammers you talk about. I have plans for those."

"You've got a quad for asking, but not even Kalros gets between a Krogan and his trophies." I flinched and dropped the topic at the glare he gave me. "I'll look and get you one of those Prothean trinkets you've started collecting."

"Deal. And not one of those useless pieces of junk you got last time. It was just a chip from a wall, not even machinery."

"I bashed that charlatan's head in, what more could you ask of me?" He was back to the gruff, if jovial, mood I was used to now. Movement and a change in tone from the center of the room drew my attention back to the bosses.

The two wouldn't touch each other, and definitely made it clear that they didn't like their opposites, but the deal seemed to be coming to a close. Then there was a gunshot outside, closer than the usual background ones. That was followed by shouts filtering in from the open balcony, and more gunfire. The leaders seemed ready to draw their guns on each other, but then one of each's subordinated ran up the stairs from the ground floor.

They said different things, but the White Tiger's summed it up best. "There's a mob from the lowers outside. They're shooting at us. Nobody's dead but Dalric's out and Russ's arm got broken by some biotic fucker they had. The Shadows outside lost five people already; we're falling back into the store."

I cursed under my breath as the Krogan next to me growled. The indicators on his shotgun powered up, as did the quiet whirr and gurgle of the coolant system Mena and I had worked into his armor, while he stomped over to the pair. "My men and the Tigers should hold downstairs. We have the best shields and training in case they try to break in. Juyl, your people should hold the balcony. They can fire down without getting hit."

Bern, the leader of the human group, grudgingly nodded his assent. His shaved head glinted with the motion, his ebony skin contrasting greatly against the white-dyed beard and the tattooed white stripes on his face.

Juyl's men already knew better than to argue with the Krogan, and the groups reorganized once the imposing human gave the word. Tech-plates on his armor sprang to life, claws slipping out of his striped white gauntlets as the Krogan went downstairs.

"The status reports from the base stopped coming in. Someone's jamming us." He growled and his personal guard from around the room shifted to surround him. "This isn't an ordinary mob. Juyl, did you bring any hackers?"

The Batarian's response was negative. I felt like I should try to be useful, especially with how much of a bad feeling this was giving me. Even the Prothean memories in my head were clamoring to prepare for the worst, and combined it was giving me a headache.

"I have a Quarian employee upstairs. She might be able to help get through the jamming, if you have any techs here Bern." The man nodded. Sal'Ris went up to get the mother and tell her what was happening, leaving me standing around uselessly leaning on my cane. Screams and gunshots were still echoing in from outside, and I heard the distinctive double-boom of the shotgun I'd sold Zakal drift up the staircase before an alarm on my omnitool chimed that the door was sealed and locked. I shut the balcony door as well, more to keep any stray shots out than anything else.

The room was empty now except for Juyl, the techs having followed my Batarian guard up to work in safety with Mena. If all else failed, I knew that she would keep the family alive, and with the numbers the gangs had here I didn't think there'd be a problem that needed her specific brand of brutality. I mean, they had three Krogan here after all.

The massive Batarian was staring at me. Even as I mentally pleaded for him to do otherwise, he started towards me. His voice was a low rumble that threatened violence if I tried to stand up to him.

"I don't know who you are, and I don't care. Zakal's the one who trusts you: I don't." He was acting superior to me, and I found myself unconsciously flinching back submissively. Then my muscles just froze and it felt like I was watching myself in a movie as my body straightened back up, stiffening. "Don't think I didn't notice your SIU assassin. If you make trouble for me you'll find your Krogan 'friend' using your spine as a toothpick, but not before I make you watch those Quarian sluts be fucked to death by this station's filth."

It wasn't me doing it, or at least I didn't think it was, but I cheered myself on inside as my hand shoved a pistol up under the bottom of his helmet, inside his barriers and poised to kill him in one shot if my finger so much as twitched.

"You're nothing but a filthy cur who doesn't deserve the eyes he's been gifted with," my voice was a hiss in Highborn, but in my head the words were Prothean. "Your flesh is as weak as your mind and the ill-gotten wealth you've built by using others for fear. You are an arrogant fool who thought that just because I have to use a cane that I couldn't and wouldn't hurt you. Now if you _ever_ threaten me, my shop, or my associates again, you _will_ watch everything that you've ever built come crashing down around you and the last thing you see will be a bloodied knife digging out the last of your eyes."

With that I shoved him back, somehow sending him stumbling as I felt my muscles stretch to the edge of tearing. Concealing the shaking in my arms, I returned the gun to my hip and rested both arms on my cane.

The helmetless Batarian was furious, his nostrils and the greenish-brown ridges on his face quivering. He looked like he was about to kill me himself, and suddenly I found the sudden surge of strength leaving me. Put back in control it was all I could do to keep from shaking from the low burn in both my arms and my torso. It would have been no trouble for the man to kill me, and I had no doubt that he would've, if the doors to the balcony hadn't slid open just in time for practically the entire contents of the balcony to try rushing in.

Most of them made it inside... but they didn't make it whole as three waves of concussive and explosive force erupted behind them, one after another. Grenades; it had to be. Which meant something was really, really wrong here. Mobs from the lowers didn't have grenades, and no random thugs with them would attack a place this heavily defended. Someone had to be after the gang leaders.

My ears were ringing from the sound of the blast, but my armor had at least tried to compensate for it so I wasn't too badly off. Not near as much as Juyl was, from the looks of him. The gangmembers who'd survived the blast were either screaming, moaning, or picking themselves up as I hurried over to look outside. The two Krogan were still standing, albeit scorched, roaring and firing into the crowd below. I couldn't see a difference, visually, between this mob and the last one.

There was a crack, much closer and different in tone, as something seemed to bounce off the air right in front of me, embedding itself in the wall to my right with a puff of dust just as an alarm on my helmet started screaming that my shields were down to half strength. I started scrambling back, trying not to fall as my muscles protested, when the alarm got louder and something pinged off my shoulder. This time I saw someone in grey armor holding a sleek, military-style rifle slide back behind a cluster of people in ragged clothing clutching pistols I'd rather melt with plasma rather than touch.

"There's some kind of professional group in the mob. Full armor, actual guns. Look for grey." My voice cracked and shook as I tripped over some type of body part and landed on my back, all the wind rushing out of me.

The Krogan didn't respond, but one actually ducked down into cover after a bullet rammed into his shoulder. A few of the less-hurt Shadows were rushing back onto the balcony, keeping their heads down and spacing up. They wouldn't all get caught in a grenade blast again.

Juyl had a helmet slide up from his armor, assembling itself as he pulled a rifle off his back and moved out to coordinate the defense. I was hobbling over to the stairs, though. I needed to get to where Sal'Ris could hear me; whatever was happening, a biotic assassin would be extremely helpful in not dying or having my store blown up more than necessary.

"Reyja'Krem! We've got a problem!" The shout went out, but before any reply came down the thunder of Zakal's shotgun erupted several times, amidst a storm of automatic gunfire. I started down the stairs before a fist-sized chunk of concrete chipped off right next to my foot. So I just yelled down, "What's happening?"

It was some female Tiger that replied, her voice distressed. "Somebody hacked the door and fucking kids keep climbing over each other's bodies to shoot at us. They're fucking suicide bombers."

An explosion followed the next crack of the shotgun and Zakal roared. "Sorry Human. I'll clean up the body parts that made."

"Look for grey armor; there are professionals hiding in the chaos."

"Got it. Clawface, you gonna use that incendiary?" A muted explosion and a rash of louder screams followed. I felt sick, scrabbling back to where I could almost pretend the fight outside wasn't happening. They were kids. We were fighting teenagers. Teenagers that didn't have any chance of surviving this but were desperate enough to crawl over the melting bodies of their peers to try anyway. It was unfair.

Sal'Ris made it down the stairs at the same time as three unnervingly still White Tigers were brought up by some of their peers, two of which dashed back down while the other, apparently their medic, crouched down over one who had blood leaking out of a hole in his armor.

I couldn't fight. I couldn't make myself shoot innocents like this, even if I wouldn't be a complete liability because of my leg. But it wasn't right to be the only one doing nothing.

"Can I help?" The medic barely glanced at me as I dropped down to my knees next to her.

"Get their armor off. Check for a pulse or vitals if you can. This jamming is screwing with their vital monitors and I can't get a read."

Jamming would only mess with transmitting the data. Instead of having to waste time stripping armor from someone who was already dead, I could just tap directly into the armor's systems. A wave of my omnitool over the ancillary diagnostics chip in the side of the torso. The placement was standard on all human-made armor, and needed a connection within so many inches to even access.

The popup on my omnitool scrolled down until it showed that the wearer had flatlined. I resisted the urge to gag and shuffled over to the next after telling the medic he was dead. This one was in the yellow, flashing urgently.

"This one's alive. Pulse is elevated, minor blood loss turning into moderate, and I think he's got a punctured lung with where the entry and exit holes on the armor are." She pushed me out of the way, cursing, and I triggered the emergency release on his chestplate through the panel. It broke the environmental seals and the armor itself would need a lot of work, but it mean she could just toss the metal and ceramic plate off to the side and start treating him.

"Kowalski's stable for now. Make sure he doesn't wake up and start thrashing; the medigel needs time to set or he could bleed out."

More and more casualties were brought up as time went on. Some survived, some didn't. The medic and I prioritized the Tigers over the Shadows, who usually had either head wounds that couldn't be fixed or minor hits to the arm that we patched with medigel.

It was disheartening to watch someone flatline completely as I tried to save them, albeit clumsily. I wasn't a trained medic, but as the casualties mounted the medic seemed grateful to have an extra set of hands. Especially one who knew more than she did about stripping off armor and saving time on finding out who was saveable. The work brought flashes of the same in my mind, and sometimes I'd blink and see three-fingered hands in crimson armor overlaid on top of mine, the unfamiliar armored bodies replaced with Prothean corpses that my head identified as friends, children, and innocents killed by the inexorable tide of the Reapers. Nevertheless, I pushed through even as the unconscious leader of the Shadows was dragged in.

Eventually the radio in my ear crackled and Mena's voice came through it. She sounded tired, and I could hear chatter in Khellish in the background from Nia. "We've broken through the jammer. The Tigers are calling for help now."

Sal'Ris would tell the Shadows since this was on our personal lines and not just mine. The next clicked over to just the Quarian and me. "Selos, we've got a problem. I doubt the Tigers noticed, but this was a Blue Suns jammer. Not just something a grunt could rig up, this came out of their upper-grade stock, and it was hosted locally."

I groaned. "So either they stole it, or we've got one of the biggest mercenary outfits in the galaxy attacking us."

"That would be correct."

"They have to be after the gang leaders." I hoped that was it. I hadn't done anything to make them come after me as far as I knew. "The fighting should be over soon. We'll get this shit done with and kick the gangs out. Hopefully they'll just leave us alone."

"Gotcha. They shouldn't realize we're through the jamming until the reinforcements come through."

Her line clicked off as I brought one up with the Reyja'Krem. "What's it like out there?"

"We've managed to down half a dozen of those bastards in grey armor, but they keep using the kids as cover." Her voice was a feral growl. "I can't lock onto any of them enough to charge and if we tried they'd get us in a crossfire with nothing to hide behind."

"We've got reinforcements coming in soon. They'll have to either bolt or die fighting."

"Yeah. I tore up their biotic after they knocked out the asshole from the Shadows, but they keep pulling back their wounded before we can finish anything." A loud blast from the shotgun rang out. "Make that seven that we've killed. Working with these gang idiots is torture; they don't get tactics at all and seem too preoccupied with shooting the kids than anything else. There aren't many left, though."

I'd never heard of the Blue Suns doing anything like this, even on Omega. Not throwing defenseless kids strapped with grenades into a meatgrinder like this. It was something the Blood Pack would do.

Fifteen minutes later a troop of White Tigers came in and mopped up the rest of the resistance. All of the actual mercenaries died fighting, but a few of the kids survived and were escorted away by the Tigers. I didn't want to know what was going to happen to them and I didn't want to know. The Shadows left almost immediately, save for Zakal and his little troop, while the Tigers cleaned up the bodies and gathered up their equipment.

I couldn't force myself to look outside or on the ground floor while they were doing that, confining myself to the workshop, which was now bereft of bodies but not of bloodstains. All of the wounded had been treated, except for Bern himself who had insisted he be treated last.

"Alice says that you were quite helpful in treating our wounded." He gave me a polite nod of respect. "I understand that you didn't have to, and you have my thanks for that. We'll route an additional ten thousand credits to you for the damages and combat risks you and your people undertook."

I gave a small bow in return. "That is unnecessary, but highly appreciated. I knew the risks when I agreed to house this meeting here." There was a pause as I gathered my thoughts and steeled my will for something that my sponsor had insisted I broach after being informed of the meeting. "If you have the time, I have a matter that I believe you might be interested in."

He hummed. "Speak, then."

I shook my head. "No, it is one that I am not at liberty to speak of to any save you."

He inclined his head curiously, and brushed off the medic's complains as he ordered her out of the room. "I certainly hope that you are not wasting my time."

"I think not, Sir. Is it still accurate that you and your men currently exclusively hold four hangar bays on Doru large enough to berth mid-weight cruisers?" He nodded. "The group that sponsored me here wishes for me to ask if you would be willing to provide them with safe and discreet services should they pass through this region of space."

"I'm not keen on allowing unknowns guaranteed access to the heart of my territory without them passing through our pickets and paying the standard fee. Why would they be any different?"

I gulped. "The group I speak of is known as the Corsairs. Independent ship captains and crews dedicated to fighting piracy in the Traverse and protecting human colonies. Their ships are not welcome, nor safe, on any docks in this area of the Terminus, and they would wish to change that."

I had my faceplate retracted, and his eyes bored into mine uncomfortably. "Boy, you're in over your head."

"What?"

"I never would have pegged you for an Alliance agent, but I see that they've become more desperate than ever to use a teenager from the Terminus." He shook his head and sighed. "From the look on your face you didn't even know the Corsairs were an Alliance program. Or that the last five agents they tried to put on station were strung up by slavers or the Blood Pack within a month."

I gulped. The man who hired me hadn't said anything like that. "Your choices are your own, but I'd recommend being more careful with who you reveal your allegiances to. Ninety percent of this station would shoot you for saying what you just did, and the rest would sell you out to someone who would. Learn to ask for training and greater transparency, otherwise they'll throw you away like they do everyone."

I gulped, shaking. Realizing how lucky I was not to be dead now was terrifying, and it was making my gut clench into a knot.

"You can tell your masters that they'll be welcome to dock in my Pack's territory, but they should expect to be charged." I nodded dumbly. "You seem like a good kid even with that Batarian bitch on your payroll. Try not to get your head blown off."

With that he left through the stairs and I was free to crash backwards into a chair, burying my face in my hands.

* * *

The glass in front of me was filled with frothing, light-brown liquid that smelled like the grasses I'd grown up around, but with some spicy tang underneath it that made the back of my throat tingle. I really didn't want to drink it.

The Quarian next to me was already hiccupping, the glow behind her faceplate a little dimmer than usual while she sucked something that was a dull shade of aqua out of a Turian bottle. On my other side Sal'Ris had an entire bottle of smoke-colored alcohol in front of her, along with a glass that she kept filling from the bottle and then draining in one gulp without even reacting. Two of her eyes were locked onto me, the others flicking around the dingy bar we were sitting in. It wasn't the one I'd met her in, but it looked kind of similar. This one had some kind of news station in the background, rambling about how some Blue Suns executive had killed another. It just sounded like gossip so I wasn't paying attention.

"Selos, I told you, we're not leaving until you drink that and two more glasses."

I grimaced. "I'm not comfortable with this. I've never drank before and I don't want to."

She slapped me on the back of the head, which really hurt since our helmets were off and on the bar but her hand was still encased in a metal gauntlet. "We fought off a group of assassins with nothing but two gangs on our side and none of us actually got hurt. Little Miss Tipsy over here hacked through military grade jamming in just a few minutes, I got to burn people who used kids as cannon fodder in plasma, and you helped keep a dozen people alive. Plus we got almost a hundred thousand credits for hosting that mess."

"So?"

"So since the Krogan is watching the kid, I'm not leaving until you and the mother over there are so drunk you need to hang off of me to walk."

I grumbled some unkind things in Prothean at her, but picked up the glass anyway. The liquid was bitter and sweet at the same time, some kind of spice burning along my tongue as it moved back. Then the moment it touched the back of my throat it started to burn and I sprayed it all over the counter, spilling the glass as I flailed about. The barkeeper glared at me, Mena giggled, and the highborn snorted.

"Ok, so, you can't handle your spiced ale." She turned from me to the barman. "Get him some kind of Asari wine. Something that'll get him drunk but won't offend his 'delicate sensibilities'."

It was my turn to slap her, but the hit hurt my hand more than anything else I was pretty sure. Even the movement hurt with how I'd pulled almost every muscle in my upper body earlier. Thinking back, I had heard that alcohol tended to make pain a lot easier to deal with. So when the bartender came back with a frosted golden bottle, I wasn't so hesitant to take a sip from the glass of it.

There was a gentle burn with it, but overall it tasted fruity. Like some kind of exotic juice that made my entire body tingle. It felt nice. Before I knew it I was three glasses in and rambling to Mena about how Mellaris and I used to see who could dig the bigger hole in the sand on the beach and how I'd fallen in when I was eight.

I blinked and then I was hanging with my arm wrapped around Sal'Ris' neck. Her skin felt almost like velvet, the wonderful fabric that my Mother had always carried a scrap of with her. It was nice, and I told her so even though my lips felt puffy.

"Mmm-you feel nice. Like," the sentence was interrupted with a hiccup as I blinked to try to focus my vision, "like you're rough and soft at the same time. 's nice."

She muttered out a thanks. She didn't seem as stiff as usual. her eyes fluttering around with their pupils dilated so they were just black with the silver rims hidden. My mouth was running when I saw that. "...this! 's feels great, like napping in the sunlight. 'ut your eyes not 'retty any're. I like the silver."

She grumbled, a muscle in her neck twitching under my arm."So did they. Never let me drink because then they couldn't see it while they..."

Whatever she was saying was drowned out by a thud as the ceiling and the bar rushed away from me. Or maybe I fell backwards. I wasn't really sure anymore, but I hadn't felt anything. I could see in the twisting air above me something purplish-black with maroon stripes on it leaning towards me. The blob reached an arm out, and I realized it was Mena when her visor cracked me on the nose.

Sal'Ris was next to me I think. Maybe laying on my arm since it wouldn't move even after the Quarian rolled off of me. I blinked again as a face blocked the electric light right over me. It took a second to realize that it was the man who gave me the drinks. It took another few to realize he was saying something.

"...leave. Either have someone pick you up or I'm throwing you out in the streets."

I managed to mumble back, "S'kay." I limply scrabbled to turn on the omnitool embedded on my wrist. A clumsy button press brought up what I thought was Zakal's contact. It made a really annoying beeping, and through my bleary eyes I saw Mena slap at it to try to shut it up. It devolved into a slapping match between us and the Turian above us huffed.

The Krogan asked a few questions or something I barely heard before the Turian stooped down.

"Your friends are so drunk they probably think they're playing Skylian Five with the Spirits."

The Krogan sounded irritated, and I heard whines in Khellish in the background. "Keep them there. My squad will come pick them up and pay their tab."

I didn't really care or understand what he was saying, as I forgot about the slap-fight with Mena and rolled over to rest my head on Sal'Ris. Her eyes were closed and she was snoring. It was adorable.


	8. Chapter Seven - Ignition

_Chapter Seven - Ignition_

"So, what all have we learned today?" The Krogan had his arms crossed over his chest and was staring the three of us down. His voice _hurt_.

"Not to let a Krogan sit on our couch." Sal'Ris had her eyes shut, but I glanced behind her to see the bowed-out legs that showed what she was talking about.

The Krogan's response was to stomp his armor-clad boot, loudly, against the floor. The clang made me clap my hands to my ears as my head throbbed. So did my heavily bandaged fingers. "Be serious."

A sneeze echoed out of Mena's suit speakers and made Sal'Ris and I groan. "Not to take off my visor because it's 'too hot'."

I was next, unable to look up and meet the alien's eyes. "Not to actually shoot the SMG I made out of junk pistols while I was drunk." I didn't even have eyebrows now after it blew up, and the burns and bandages just made the hangover worse.

"Good." He turned to Sal'Ris. "Batarian?"

She was gritting her teeth as she replied, "Getting drunk when I'm supposed to be the responsible one and get these two home safely isn't a good idea."

He harrumphed and nodded, basically saying we were free to disperse. Sal'Ris handled the hangover so much better than me and the sniffling Quarian, so she was democratically elected to be the first person to work a shift in the freshly-cleaned and repaired store today. Mena would wait for her hangover drugs and antibiotics to kick in and I would weather the migraine that seemed to have come with the hangover and my bright idea of firing a gun that I made while drunk.

"It's also a good idea to leave the child with the Krogan." He seemed smug as he said that, the little girl fiddling at her own little terminal nodding vigorously as he smiled at her. "If you ever need a babysitter, for your drunk-" he looked at the girl, "-behinds, or for Nia'Zala nar Xentha here just call me."

With that he stalked off, hopefully leaving so we could have some peace and quiet again. After an hour of laying on the couch with a cool towel on my head that Nia thoughtfully refreshed at the sink every fifteen minutes for me, the meds had kicked in enough that it was just a dull throb. Mena was watching some Citadel news program on the TV, the sound muted enough that when Nia's game or whatever she was doing was loud we couldn't hear it clearly. It was just a story about how two Asari with grudges against each other apparently wore the same dress to a film premier.

"Is it always like that?" My voice was a little hoarse.

"You mean waking up with an angry Krogan lecturing you about being responsible when drinking?"

I grunted. "Not that. I mean the headaches and how everything feels like said Krogan is inside your head with a hammer and a shotgun reenacting the Rachni Wars."

"Oh. Yes. When we drink as much as we did, though." She groaned, the sound mucousy. "It's been a long time since I'd actually let loose like that, and that was your first time. We kinda went too far and Sal'Ris didn't stop us."

"Remind me to never do that again."

"Gotcha." The unbent couch that she was sprawled out on creaked as she shifted. "I'll also make sure to stop you before you shoot a gun you made out of a giant heatsink and ten rotating pistols again."

I whined, "That's still a sore subject."

"I'd bet it is. You're lucky you didn't lose a finger and just got a few burns." She actually laughed as I grumbled how she was ungrateful and shouldn't make fun of me. At least she was comfortable enough to do that now, though. "Your face is funny without eyebrows."

"Just because you're loopy on antibiotics doesn't give you free-reign to be rude Mena."

I was trying to learn Khellish, a language with looping consonants and almost guttural vowels, to better communicate with the woman's daughter, so I knew to pout when Nia called out, "You really do look funny Mr. Selos."

I wouldn't be doing any work on guns or armor, not even the more intact suits recovered from the attackers, for at least a few days. The burns on my hands had to heal first, and even with expensive medigel liberally smeared across my burns it would take a bit to get fine motor control back without risking infection by working on stuff on this shithole of a station. So I had a valid medical excuse to do nothing but lay around and think for a few days.

Most of the last night was a blur, but I remembered what had been going through my head when I put together my failed invention. It had been a rather unconventional Prothean design, utilizing slightly-modified pistols attached to a central rotating heatsink. It was like a Gatling gun, from old Earth history, but modernized. By all rights it should have worked; being drunk had meant there was barely any gap between my memories and the Prothean ones. It shouldn't have exploded, not from everything I knew, but it did anyway. It left me hesitant to build anything else with how lucky I was that nothing I'd built before had failed so badly despite my personal inexperience.

Thinking about that brought my mind to how my personality would sometimes pull a complete one-eighty. My stomach lurched when I even thought about hurting someone, much less killing them, but when someone threatened me it would be like my mouth moved on its own. It had happened when the thugs robbed my store and several times when I spoke to angry customers or charlatans trying to scam me.

What had happened with Juyl had been the most extreme. I'd wanted to run and scream, but I hadn't done either. Instead I'd threatened and assaulted someone three times my size who could have ripped me apart with his bare hands. What had happened with the Turian in the alley had been something I'd wanted to do, but I had no idea where what I'd said to him came from. The fact that it had been going through my head in Prothean worried me. The times when my eyes would unfocus came less and less now, but it was starting to feel natural just to move my fingers as though they were two singular entities instead of four. Sometimes I'd catch myself just thinking in Prothean, and I'd taken to writing in my journal in their alphabet and glyphs. It was just another layer of secrecy on the designs, something I'd justified when I began doing it.

But now I could see quite clearly that it was changing me. During the fighting yesterday I'd almost thought of myself as Marni, the dead Prothean whose memories were jammed into my skull. The background noises of gunfire had seen me just flickering in and out seamlessly. Usually it interrupted me for my thoughts to swap like that, but this time it hadn't. It showed that they were becoming part of me, but I wasn't sure if I liked that. It let me better use the only real skill I had, but I felt like I was losing myself. Or splitting, kind of, into two separate personalities. It was unnerving, but if I was thinking about this right it meant that I would still be me, but the _other_ part would step in to help me when I was in danger. That's what helped me sleep at night instead of worrying that I was slowly going insane, at least.

A chime on my omnitool was the thing to pull me out of those thoughts. It was a message from Zakal.

 _Hey kid, a friend of mine brought in an old scow awhile back. Nobody's biting, and he's scrapping it for parts. You still on the market for an airlock and all the techy bits that go with it?_

My response was clumsily typed out, the bandages leading to a few misspellings that I had to correct, but it was off in just a few minutes. His response took a little longer to receive.

 _Consider it yours. I know a few guys who can set it up to fit in that bigger hallway you've got on the third floor; take some measurements and I'll pass them on. They'll handle all the vent hookups too, and you can trust them not to steal anything._

A few staggered steps and a minute leaning on the wall in the entry hallway later while Mena talked me through how to use my omnitool to laser measure the space. The measurements went in as an attachment to my next message.

 _I'll cover the cost and send them with some kind of gadget I tracked down from a shop in Doru. I'm not gonna charge you, but you owe me a free gun next time you make something with more bang than those pistols._

 _One more thing... be careful. You can trust them, but only so far. These people are dangerous, more than the two-credit thugs and runts you've fought before. Don't upset them._

After I was back on the couch I was free to smile, albeit with a bit of uncertainty in my gut after reading the last line. This was moving along a lot quicker than I'd expected; even with the extra money from hosting the meeting I'd expected to have to track down the machinery and someone who knew how to install it myself and then shell out thousands upon thousands of credits for it. Now I was getting it for free as a favor from a Krogan in exchange for a gun at a later date. Life really was strange.

"Hey Mena, Nia, come here for a second."

Mena sat down on the couch, kicking back. Something in her back popped, and the fabric of her suit creaked a little as it stretched across her. I blinked and turned away as I realized that I'd looked there. Nia sat on the ground instead, squatting in a way that would have been flat-out painful if she didn't have digitigrade legs.

"Either of you want to guess about what the messages I just got were?"

Nia tilted her head to the side. "Mr. Zakal gets to come play games with me again?"

I shook my head as Mena said, "No sweetie, the Krogan has things he needs to do. He'll come by when he can, but right now he's busy."

The girl pouted and her mother just raised her arms in an exaggerated Quarian version of a headshake. "I have no idea."

"Well, on Xentha you two didn't have to wear those suits all the time, did you?"

She sounded wistful as she answered, "No. But Nia always needed a gasmask and I usually had to wear one too. After Menthus died I've basically been in this suit trying to make ends meet. It was...not easy or safe to be out of it after I was transferred."

I flinched. I'd brought up bad memories for her, and that made me feel terrible.

"Well, I know it's not much, but how would you two feel if you could be free, at least here, in terms of what you wore?" She didn't say anything and the dull glow of her eyes made me a bit uncomfortable. "I mean, if you were comfortable doing it around Sal'Ris and I. I've been wanting to do it since I got here just for cleanliness, but we'll be getting at least this floor sealed off and sterilized."

The girl shifted a bit and whined adorably, something I was pretty sure meant she was excited but didn't think it was true. She had never really seemed comfortable in that suit, which didn't seem to fit her all that well. It wasn't too hard to figure out how the Turian had gotten one, but it also made me sick to think about. I still didn't think killing him was right... but the reason why scared me. It was because the new, more aggressive, Prothean part of my mind thought he should have been tortured.

I realized that the tangent of thought had left me just grimacing without explaining anything, so I promptly apologized, "Sorry, I was distracted. But Zakal just came through for me again; he's getting us an airlock and a crew to rig this entire place up as a cleanroom. It won't be perfect, especially since we're living here, but I'm pretty sure you two would be safe from anything more than sniffles."

Almost to punctuate that, Mena sneezed again. It made Nia giggle and broke the tension I'd created.

"I-were you planning this for us?"

I shrugged. "I wanted to do it before, but just for air quality stuff. You two made me bump up the plans for it, though, and I'd been saving some of the store's profits for it. This is a lot sooner than I'd planned, though; Zakal found everything for us and is paying as a favor since the store got trashed in the fighting yesterday."

Neither of them seemed to know what to say, so I just smiled shyly. "I've learned how bad being stuck in a suit can be since I've been here. I know armor and those envirosuits you have aren't exactly the same, but I want to make life easier for the people I care about in any I can."

I blinked and then stiffened as I was practically tackled by what felt like a ton of excited alien and rubbery suit fabric. I hadn't touched either of the Quarians while sober before, neither of the races I was raised near being very big on physical contact, so I had no idea how malleable the fabric really was, or how apparent it made certain parts of her anatomy, which were currently pressing into my chest. After a few seconds of just sitting there I felt Nia hop up and try to hug both of us, mostly just stepping on my weak leg and knocking her chin into my head. But it got through to me that they were happy, and that made me smile and wrap my arms around them both.

* * *

Three days later the Salarian foreman of the work crew was explaining as his men packed up the their tools after the third test run of the vent and airlock system. "...remove armor in holding chamber. Undersuit and clothed body harbor bacteria; need cleansed as well. Full nudity preferred, but only risk minor allergic reactions provided no contact with other dextro species outside of armor."

"Alright. Anything else?"

"Recommend leaving physical contact with unsuited Quarians to minimum. Undue risk involved in _activities._ " The way he said that matched what I'd been told about Salarians, and their confusion in regards to sexual events for pleasure. Throughout the work duration, he'd refused to accept that I didn't have an ulterior motive for this. "Allow at least four cycles for antibacterial dispersal systems to take full effect."

I nodded and thanked him. "Are you sure I can't pay you?"

He blinked rapidly. "Certain, yes. Tell Zakal favor paid, recorded in logs. Dalatrass will contact if required."

"I will. I can't thank you enough for what you've done. This means the world to Mena and Nia."

He did the Salarian version of a shrug. "Simple favor for what was owed. Upgraded security protocols on doors. Also, jammed two spy beams, purged credit siphon from register, and removed seven bugs from first and second floors."

I blinked. I hadn't known any of those things needed done. "I...thank you."

"No thanks necessary. Simply business. Make sure your Quarian runs regular checks; undue amount for store this size, concerning." He blinked his eyes one at a time, making me shiver. "Designs on display basic. Customs innovative, but unrefined. Patchwork. Potential, not quite realized. Saw Zakal's weapon, assume your design. Dangerous ground to tread, be wary."

I wasn't sure how to reply to that, especially as he took a box the size of his head, horns included, from a bag of tools he'd carried here. "Zakal's gift inside. Checked, nothing dangerous. Appears inactive and nonfunctional, but obviously device of some type. Motives in acquisition not questioned, nor is method." I took it, not sure what to do. "Will be watching, hope to see inventive mind blossom. Contact Krogan if assistance ever required, expect we may see each other again."

He joined the rest of his crew, a total of four other Salarians each in silver-colored armor that bristled with machinery I didn't recognize, in the airlock chamber and kept his eyes locked on mine until the doors clicked shut.

I jumped when Sal'Ris spoke from right next to me. She moved extremely silently for a Batarian, and it was unnerving. "The Krogan said we could trust them?"

"Yes, Reyja'Krem."

"I hope he was right. I've never spoken to a Salarian before, but I know that was abnormal. They did a lot of work for this supposed favor, but nobody would do that and the cyber work they did without a reason."

"I know. Zakal seemed wary of them, as well."

She grunted. "They each had at least three guns on them. I've never seen most of the models, but two were specialized for killing Krogan. They didn't look like decoration either; handles were worn but cared for. Those people fight. Often."

I agreed, and then called Mena out of the room where her and Nia stayed. "Do you know anything about surveillance bugs and cyberwarfare?"

She nodded after a brief coughing fit. She still wasn't over what she'd caught when she took off her faceplate. "When I wasn't maintaining equipment and machinery, that's what I was assigned to. Making, monitoring, and setting up bugs."

"So you know how to find and remove them?"

"Ye-oh." Her curious tone turned panicked as it hit her. "I'm so so so sorry! I didn't know anyone would put those here! It won't happen again, Sir."

I blinked as her tone got more and more harried. She was practically flinching away from me as I tried to calm her down. "Hey, hey, it's alright. Really. I didn't expect it either, we just need to make sure everything's safe and checked over every day or two now."

"B-but you've done so much for me and Nia. I should've been doing to much more; we shouldn't have needed to have this conversation."

She had serious self-esteem issues. Or, something like that. The glow behind her faceplate kept flicking back and forth slightly, like her eyes were rolling around or flipping in panic. It made me feel terrible. All I could think of was to awkwardly pull her into a hug.

"Mena, I've told you. You don't need to call me Sir or anything like that. You don't have to work any harder than I do or than Sal'Ris. We won't kick you out or hurt; you're just as vital to the store as us."

Sal'Ris nodded, but I noticed that she'd taken a step back. She was just as uncomfortable with the idea of hugs as I was, I supposed. It took a bit after I finished talking for Mena to actually become more than a limp bag of meat in my hands. I thought I could hear her crying inside the helmet, something I didn't know was possible for Quarians, but it could have just been her stuffed up nose.

"Whatever happened in the past, it's the past. It can't hurt you anymore, just like mine can't and Sal'Ris's can't." I tried to ignore how she was pressing up against me again, but it was difficult. From the corner of my eye I could see Sal'Ris stiffen. She absolutely refused to talk about her past, but it was painfully obvious that bad things happened in it. I didn't blame her for not trusting us enough yet to open up on it, though; I still kept a lot of things from them myself, and in the scheme of things we hadn't known each other all that long.

The silence that followed was kind of awkward, especially when Mena showed no signs of letting go. "I have an idea; let's go shopping."

Sal'Ris looked at me like I'd said we should invite a group of Asari over and have an orgy, which was word-for-word quoting from something Zakal had recommended. "I mean, we could all use some new food. Sal'Ris could use a new set of clothes for around here, and I wouldn't mind looking for a new cane."

They still seemed hesitant. "Come on, you two need a wardrobe and after the stuff that's gone wrong recently, we deserve to celebrate! I'll pay for everything."

They grudgingly agreed, though Nia was the only one who seemed really excited about it. The chatter in Khellish overloaded my translator so I only got about every third word, but it was obvious that she was excited to be getting new clothes and out of, as her mother had to tell me she said, "This sticky-stinky-clingy-loose-piece-of-garbage-suit." Apparently that was leaving out some curse words the girl had learned from living with and around mercenary soldiers her entire life.

With how excited she was I completely forgot about the still-sealed box tossed onto the couch.

* * *

Even though I'd suggested the trip, I was regretting it about an hour of pushing through the throngs of people in Doru. Sal'Ris, being the most threatening of us, was tasked with keeping an eye on Nia. After weeks caged up in the top floor, she ran around everywhere. It was adorable, but terrified me and her mother every time that she went out of sight. The Batarian scared away all of the more opportunistic scum that looked at her, and the girl was smart enough to stay away from the more obvious degenerates. That, coupled with the tracker Mena had linked to the girl's suit, meant that she never strayed too far or was in immediate danger of harm.

We were mostly just wandering, and Mena stuck close to me. She seemed to notice that my leg was starting to hurt, and kept insisting that I let her carry the bags of clothing that we'd gotten so far from the only two decent-looking stores we'd found so far. The others didn't really seem like a safe place to take a child, much less a Quarian one. Still, we'd found a variety of stuff for those two already, and the girl was really excited about it. She didn't want to wait the week she needed to, though.

Sal'Ris and I, however, weren't having much luck. She hadn't found anything that she approved of and had been trembling with rage when I had jokingly suggest she buy one of the more revealing pieces. If I hadn't been wearing armor I had no doubt that she would have left me with another wound to spend a week moaning about. I hadn't found a store that sold a cane or anything yet, but that didn't surprise me much. I'd practically had to beg to get this one on Horizon instead of just having the leg amputated and getting a prosthesis or cybernetics.

Eventually, though, I did find a store. It was a small place with two Turians in smoke-grey armor outside, something that I'd noticed becoming more and more prominent as we walked into this area of Doru. A cordon of such guards, though suited and armored Quarians had been included in it, was a fair way down the street, and seemed to turn away the vast majority of the more criminal elements in the rest of Doru. They'd just waved us through, though, especially after they'd seen Nia.

This section was much cleaner than the others. No prostitutes or drug dealers or slavers in the alleyways, relatively little garbage, and an almost respectful population that walked the streets, seeming to move to and from a few lifts visible over the tops of the stores where they didn't reach up to the floor of the level above us. It was quiet, too. Every now and then there was a burst of automatic gunfire, but otherwise it was almost unnervingly silent, even before going into the store. Nia and Sal'Ris stayed outside.

Once inside, the only noises were the quiet creak of a fan somewhere in the vent systems and muted instrumental music playing over unseen speakers. It was calming, compared to the hustle and bustle of the rest of Doru, but it did little to help how my leg was throbbing. The bones were still basically held together with the biological version of glue and each step felt like a small fire was burning somewhere inside my leg, the pain it caused gradually getting worse as I used the leg more and more.

The store itself had rather low ceilings, and walls draped with what I knew were Quarian tapestries and rugs. Bright purples and reds dominated on the walls, though deep browns and dull yellows were predominate on the floor. Metal shelving, painted to look like wood, was laid out in a grid pattern, assumably, with an open corridor leading up to where a suited Quarian sat behind an open counter.

She was staring at us as we came in, originally looking very enthusiastic but her shoulders dropping slightly as it became obvious that she didn't recognize us.

"Ah, welcome strangers." The datapad that she had been holding was laid gently on the counter and the woman slowly stood to greet us. She seemed to move slowly and carefully, like the one arthritic Turian on our colony had. That automatically made her the oldest, non-Asari, person I'd ever seen on Omega. "My little store rarely sees the Uninitiated wander in, but I would be happy to see if I possess anything that you wish to acquire."

I gave her a polite tilt of Batarian respect, the glow from her eyes fading for a moment as she apparently blinked, and heard Mena do the same.

It took her a moment to reach us, each motion carefully measured out and a cane fitted to a Quarian hand coming into view as she rounded the corner of her desk. "I apologize for the slowness of my motions; the years have not been as kind to me as I could have hoped for in my youth."

Mena replied before I could. "It's alright, Mother. The sands of time build up in those who have earned the wisdom of the Ancestors, we can only be honored for one of your stature to take the time to speak to us."

The woman laughed, the noise rougher than expected just as her voice was. "Ah, a polite one. Such a rarity among Terminus stock. It's nice to see that a relic like myself can have some small hope for the future of our species." Her posture relaxed a little. "Enough of that, though. I see your companion here is a Human, but he carries a cane inscribed with Batarian runes. Novice work, but done with an honest heart and wasted on a poor piece of equipment."

* * *

By the time we left the store the both of us had been educated about the religion of the Brotherhood of the Fallen, I had two new canes, and a new friend on the station. It had only taken an hour for Sal'Ris to come in complaining about how Nia kept running off, and then another half hour for her and the girl to go back to the store after the Batarian got tired and the girl began straying too close to the edges of the safe district.

The woman was ancient; apparently old enough that the Flotilla would have euthanized her over fifty years ago if she hadn't been exiled in her youth. Fillna'Seni vas Omega was really an amazing person, and even the hours of discussion only revealed a glimpse into her personality and her past.

Eventually I gave up on ignoring the repeated alerts popping up on my omnitool and bid the woman farewell before withdrawing to the street with one of my new purchases slung across my back and the other in my hand.

I felt the blood drain out of my face as I checked them, and a gasp from Mena showed that she had at least some of the same notifications. Two were priority messages from my contact in the Corsairs, demanding to know what I could find out about the information that had been leaking on the extranet for hours.

Going further back the news feeds that I followed, I saw they were all blowing up with something about the Blue Suns conspiring against Aria. I was only partway through the most recent reports when each of the three large holoscreens swapped to a feed of that Asari, as did my omnitool news feed. She wasn't in her room in Afterlife, though, instead standing in the middle of a street filled with crumbled buildings.

"I'm sure you've all seen the shit about the Blue Suns that's been cluttering the feeds. I'm here to say that it's true." Her face contorted and a flash of blue outlined her head. "And that I am NOT happy."

The camera panned out and showed a street filled with corpses. The majority wore Blue Suns colors, but the colors of a few of Aria's enforcers were mixed in along with groups of White Tigers and the grey-armored Brotherhood of the Fallen. Live members of each group were executing the downed Blue Suns, and it was then that I realized the background conflict was much, much louder than it had been earlier.

"These are what's left of the Blue Suns Legionnaires. They thought they could fuck with me, and this is what they get. Tarak and the headquarters are _mine._ Everything else they own is open season. I want them dead and their bodies spaced."

The signal cut off, showing Aria's symbol, and then my omnitool started ringing. It was Sal'Ris. There was no picture, just her voice and panting, ragged breath.

"In the name of the Pillars, get back here. We're..." the call abruptly cut off, a gunshot the last thing to come through.


	9. Chapter Eight - Conflagration

_Chapter Eight - Conflagration_

With barely a glance at each other we were both running as fast as we could. She must have gotten the same exact call, and felt the same sensation of the bottom falling out of her stomach. In her worry she completely forgot about my cane, and how the fastest I could move was a limping jog. I was maybe halfway down the street when she ducked through the security cordon around this area without even looking twice at the bodies she was jumping over.

She was out of sight by the time I got there, panting from the exertion and the pain in my leg. One of the Turians manning the hastily-erected barriers held an arm out to stop me. "Outsider, it's not safe out there."

I could see that. This street was apparently one of the longer ones in the district, and all down its length I could see fights and fires. It was ten times worse than when we'd come through earlier, and it made me queasy. But as part of me yelled to pull back, to care more about my own wellbeing than my friends', it felt like ice ran down my spine. My grip on the cane tightened and I took a deep breath.

"I know. But, I have to get back to my friends. They need me."

The Turian shook his head, but stepped aside to let me through. "We'll cover you as far as we can, but then you're on your own. May the spirits of your ancestors watch over you."

I had the route to the closest lift that went up to Fumi in my head. As fast as I could go it would probably take fifteen minutes to get back to the shop. That didn't factor in the chaos and random shooting in the area. I'd barely gone a dozen steps before a Batarian in ragged clothes lunged at me from an alleyway, only to be riddled with automatic gunfire and fall into a heap on the ground behind me. Somehow I didn't even flinch, and I realized that I had my pistol out.

I'd made it to the first turn I had to take before anyone else took notice of me. That notice came through in the form of a horrific creature with reddish skin tackling me to the ground, the breath leaving my lungs as the metal of my armor shrieked from claws scraping across my helmet. An alarm in my ear was blaring about environmental seal failures on my neck joint before I kicked out and shoved the thing away.

The panic in my gut didn't ease as I realized it was the first Vorcha I'd ever seen up close, but my arm raised up and shot anyway. The alien just looked down at the fist-sized hole it had blown in his bared chest, then jumped towards me again. The second shot hit decidedly lower, making even the Prothean part of me cringe and the alien shriek, and then it was on top of me again.

Before it could do anything, though, an armored boot knocked it away and a shotgun blast vaporized its head. I expected whoever had saved me to do the same to me, given the nature of Omega, but instead I found a gauntlet offered out to help me up.

"You seemed like the type to know better than to be out in this alone." The voice that spoke was familiar, and vaguely bemused. I recognized the armor, and the man inside, as the men and women behind him fanned out into a military-style firing line, a red and glowing mine streaking out from one of the engineers in the back row. The white-stripes gleamed in light from a fire down the street, doubly so on the tattoos on Bern's face that glistened with sweat.

"I've got no choice." I nodded in thanks as he handed me my cane. "Something's happening at my store and I lost contact with my guard. We have a kid in there."

The man didn't even hesitate before ordering, "Niki, Phara, get this man back to his store." Two of the people in the firing line nodded and stepped forward, one a large dark-skinned man with a clear visor and the other a shorter person, probably a woman, with a blacked out helmet. "He's the supplier of our Alliance-grade weapons, so make sure he lives and that his people do too."

The rest of the group moved on quickly, occasionally firing at more Vorcha and then ending up in a prolonged firefight with two Krogan in blood-red armor at the end of the street. The larger man actually picked me up, armor and all, like I was nothing and then the three of us were darting down side-street after side-street until we came to a small lift I'd never seen or been on before. It was empty, and started sliding slowly upwards.

"What can we expect?" The voice was filtered and almost synthesized, coming from the smaller of the pair. The bigger one had sat me back onto my own foot and cane already, and was checking an oversized assault rifle in his hands.

"I have no idea. Whatever it is they managed to get through a biotic Batarian I have on staff right after Aria sent out her announcement. Our Quarian employee's daughter is there somewhere, and she ran off as soon as we heard it. She had a pistol and has training, but I have no idea if she's ok. So she might be there too."

The shorter one nodded. "Understood. It's your store; what do we do to whoever we find?"

Again, my words rang out in my head in Prothean. "Kill them." They both nodded and the shorter one pulled two Asari-made SMGs. One had indicators of a thermite-laced incendiary ammo block, the other seemed normal.

The lift seemed to take forever to stop, the sealed cage opening up onto a dim street on Fumi. I had no idea where we were, but as the big man awkwardly picked me up again they seemed to be sure enough on where to go.

I couldn't really do anything except watch. Nobody got in the way of us, but along the streets I saw groups of dead Shadows. It didn't look like something a minor gang would cause, and everything clicked as I saw a running firefight between a group of the larger gang and a group of White Tigers. The Shadows were run-of-the-mill grunts with terrible guns. The Hahne-Kedar guns I'd gotten for the Tigers weren't great, but they were the deciding factor it looked like.

"That ceasefire didn't last long."

The small one shrugged. "Kid, this is Omega. A week is generous on something like that. We couldn't pass up the chance." They shot one of the Shadows as we ran by, then came out onto the street by my store.

I didn't see Mena anywhere, and somehow the street was actually quiet. The door was closed and locked, but didn't open when I keyed the command in on my omnitool. "Someone's definitely in there."

The Salarians had installed almost a dozen overrides when they'd been here. The first six didn't work, the seventh did. The room inside was empty, seemingly normal, but there were congealing footprints in orange blood on the ground. It made half of me sick inside, the rest of me shake with anger. There wasn't very much, but it still didn't make sense that someone could have taken Sal'Ris down without a fight.

"Any change to the layout since the meeting?"

"We have an airlock on the upper floor. Ship-grade."

"Any sensors that could have told them we were here?"

"Not unless they set something up." My voice shook. "Sal'Ris took out three Krogan without getting scratched. This isn't something to rush into."

We'd moved into the back of the first floor now, clustered around the stairs.

"They'll either be on the second floor or up on the top. I can see the blood trail going up."

The two nodded, and then almost as if they were a single person they started up the stairs. Something on their boots muffled the noise there should've been. I followed, nowhere near as silently, to find them at the foot of the stairs. A suit of armor was laid out on the ground, in a puddle of orange. Sal'Ris.

Her armor diagnostics came up on my omnitool. She was alive, but barely. The smaller of the pair with me reluctantly closed the hole in her stomach with a patch of medigel, but with where the shot was I was terrified. There were more footprints in her blood, and two sets were Quarian. One small, one big.

"Those bastards... they shot her in front of Nia."

I led the way up to the third floor, not caring anymore. The two Tigers joined me, standing in front so that their shields would overlap over mine. "If they have Nia and Mena, don't shoot. If the two aren't in sight, shoot them."

The cycle seemed to take eternity. Then it opened six people in blue and white armor stood with their guns aimed right at us, two more in the back with shotguns to the heads of Mena and Nia, both kneeling on the floor. One was a Turian, but the rest seemed to have Batarian-patterned armor.

Neither side opened fire, but the tension was thick in the air. I was the first one to speak. "You _chethenic_ spawn of the desert are trespassing in my home. You're holding the child of one of my employees hostage and you shot a highborn unprovoked. You have no idea what you're interfering with."

"Look you..."

"SILENCE." My voice was like a whip cracking, and four of the Batarians instinctively straightened up. "You fools don't deserve your eyes since you didn't even see who you just tried to kill. This will be your only chance to leave alive. You will lay down the shotgun you took from the Reyja'Krem. You will leave the two Quarians unharmed. We will set down our weapons and step aside, and you can leave. I don't care where you go, but I never want to see you again."

To show I meant my words, even shaking with anger as I was, I threw my pistol onto the ground partway down the hall. They didn't relax, but I was trusting in the idea that most of these Batarians were conditioned enough to leave. They might know I wasn't Batarian, but I spoke like a highborn. The Prothean memories had shifted my posture and gave my words the biting tone of command to support that illusion.

Reluctantly, the White Tigers with me gently set their own weapons on the ground and pushed them down the hallway. Each unloaded a veritable arsenal, but soon enough all of our weapons were out of reach and we'd spread to the edge of the hallway, leaving more than enough room for them to pass us by. But still they hesitated.

"Leave. Now. Or you will face consequences you cannot begin to imagine as the heat of a thousand deserts and a thousand suns pours through you under the gaze of the uplifted Elders upon the Pillar of Strength."

One of the most-likely lowborn Batarians was the first to move, and the others followed. The Turian sat down the shotgun he'd taken from Sal'Ris slowly then followed. That left one higher-caste Batarian standing with a shotgun aimed at me and the two holding the Quarians. After a few seconds of tense standoff, the Turian barked for them to leave. They did so, but not before shoving the two women violently to the ground. Nothing was said as they all piled into the airlock and the door closed, signalling the start of the decon cycle. That was my chance.

I ripped off my helmet so it didn't muffle my voice. "Override eighty-nine. Authorization Operative Selos. Callback Five-Seven-Two-Eight-Rakal, Code Omega." I waited five seconds, the time ticking by in my head. "Pillar of Strength; the desert's flame shall be our shield."

The terminal used for diagnostics dinged. "Override accepted. Doors sealed; commencing cleanse cycle. Estimated time twenty-five minutes. Bring up interior feed?"

"No."

The terminal beeped again and shut down. The airlock was soundproofed, so I turned my back on it and limped toward where the mother was holding her sobbing, shaking child. "Are you two ok?" My tone was soft and caring. The hardness drained out of me along with the ice tingling down my spine, leaving just the fragile me shaking and about to cry at everything that had happened, trying to shove the thought of the eight men I'd just sentenced to death out of my head.

"I-I think so." Mena's voice was trembling. "Sal'Ris she...she's dead. I found her when I got here and then they-they..."

I patted her back awkwardly. "It's alright. She's not dead yet, and I think she'll pull through." I smiled wanly, knowing it didn't reach my eyes. "She's a tough girl, won't let a shot through her stomach keep her down."

I turned to Nia next. "They didn't hurt you?"

The girl shook her head, still quivering. I coaxed the two of them gently into their room, then shut the door. They needed time together to relax. And neither of them would need to see what I'd done.

I saw the two armored people staring at the airlock, the question of what I'd done obvious in their stance. My voice sounded cold and detached even to me. "The Salarians who installed it left an override sequence, voice-coded to me. It's heating the air inside hot enough to melt lead. I wasn't letting them get away with this."

"You've got secrets. Nobody has the credits to set something like that up without having a powerful sponsor." The man with the clear visor spoke, his voice a lot softer than I'd expect, but it carried with it a cold and unspoken menace. "Who you work for doesn't matter as long as you stay out of our way and honor our contract."

It was awkwardly silent for a few minutes until one of them cocked their head like something was coming in on their radio. "The medical team I called just picked up your Squint. It's unconscious and critical, but stable. They're taking it to a clinic in the Lowers, only one that we can trust to still be open. After they drop it off and that airlock finishes the Squint-roast with a side of Spike-kebab you'll be on your own."

* * *

Irina was with me as the suspiciously-armored doors slid open into a stark white waiting room. For a free clinic in a place where the most common wounds would be gunshots, and where filth was everywhere outside, it was surprisingly clean. Even just walking in left grungy footprints on the tile, but as we approached sealed-off counter a small drone slid out from the wall and began following us, the grime disappearing as it was passed over.

The human behind the counter seemed tired as he looked us up and down. "If you're going to demand protection money I'm just going to remind you that Dr. Solus killed the last seven people to try that, and that there are three different drones and turrets with their guns trained on you now." He yawned. "So, with that out of the way, why are you here without being hurt. Please don't waste our time or resources; we're low enough on everything as it is with this rioting."

After seeing what was outside, I couldn't blame him for that attitude. "We're here about the Batarian the White Tigers dropped off."

He looked me up and down then pressed something on the console in front of him. A door in the back of the room slid open. "The doctor is out on business, but he patched your friend up before he left." The words came through an intercom rather than directly from the young man, who hadn't moved as far as I knew, but the voice was the same. The room we came out into was fairly long, lined with privacy curtains on one wall and medical equipment on the other. The unclosed curtains showed cots, and made up the majority of the room, but some were sealed. I saw an Asari in casual clothes pushing a tray of supplies around, before she just stopped and disappeared into a side door.

"The woman will live, but she won't be up for much. There's a datapad next to her cot with the full extent of her injuries; she's not exactly mobile now and won't be for at least a week. Solus wants to keep her here for observation until then, since the shot went through one of the Batarian equivalents of a kidney." The voice sounded like he was here with us, no crackle at all in the intercom.

That made me feel sick. She was one of the first friends I'd ever made, even though she didn't converse much. The doctor here said that she would live, but that didn't necessarily mean much going by the word of a random person on Omega. I held onto hope that she'd be alright, though, especially from the looks of this clinic. It was actually pristine, compared to the district outside that was total chaos. Blue Suns were fighting desperately in some areas, and others had already fallen to either smaller gangs or the station's warlord. We were a fair distance from the main fighting, though, at least five levels above and half the district away according to the Asari.

The man's voice guided us to Sal'Ris over the intercom and then we were left alone with the unconscious Batarian and the gentle whine of some machine clamped to her stomach. Asleep, she actually seemed almost peaceful. The ridges on her face weren't as prominent as when she was awake, almost softening her. The illusion of that was ruined, though, when she shifted and her face twisted with pain. It hadn't helped that her skin was paler than normal, the grey much more prominent without the normal amount of orange blood running just under her skin, or that the blankets were clenched and wrinkled by hands curled into fists.

I felt an arm go under my shoulder, and found myself pulled close to the other alien with me in what I figured was an Asari hug. "She'll be ok, Selos. You saw her fight those Krogan; a bullet won't keep her down for long."

I sighed, blinking away the tears in my eyes and being glad my visor hid them. I saw the datapad the receptionist had told us about and grabbed it, entering in Batarian as the language to display. The blood drained from my face as I read it. "The Krogan weren't smart enough to use enough antibiotic grenades that they overloaded her amp with backlash. The Blue Suns were. It wasn't the gunshot that knocked her out; her brain was almost cooked by her amp." I handed her the pad after I'd read it.

Her amp was trashed completely, and the doctor had removed the device. There were apparently third degree burns on the back of her neck, and the surgery to get a new one implanted wasn't possible on Omega, not to mention being extremely costly. As in, more than everything I'd made from the store so far if I bought her a high-end one. She didn't use her biotics at all outside of fighting but to suddenly lose them...I couldn't imagine how it would feel.

We left the datapad on the bedside table after downloading its contents. A few moments passed before I spoke. "Irina could you, ah, wait outside?"

She left after another gentle hug, and I was left alone with Sal'Ris. I had no idea what to do. So I just rambled. "I killed the people who did this to you." I sighed. "They burned in the airlock like exiled criminals burned in the deserts of Khar'Shan. I did it because they hurt you, hurt Nia."

"This station is changing me. In the last three weeks more people have died because of me than I've ever even known." I didn't try to blink away the tears, now. "Before I came here my entire family and almost all of my friends died. That was my fault too. I fell into a ruin and triggered these-these monsters that came out and killed everyone. And then the entire colony died in a nuclear explosion except for me and a few others who ran like cowards in the only shuttle we had."

I vented everything to her, everything except my Prothean memories and being an agent for the Corsairs and AIS. And somehow by the end of it, I felt better. Her face had relaxed again, almost like talking to me had helped her, and I saw that her hands were flat and relaxed.

I didn't know if anybody had listened, but by the time I came out of the room almost an hour had passed and the lights had flicked down to a dimmer mode. The door opened easily from this side, letting me out into a lobby where Irina was waiting, sitting patiently in one of the chairs away from the door and fiddling with her omnitool. She saw me come out, closed it, and then we got up to leave.

We actually made it through the chaos without anything more than a few shockwaves to knock desperate lowlifes away, courtesy of the mercenary who'd chosen to come with me. The first words to pass between us, since I'd asked her to wait, didn't come about until we were in the small aircar that Elana kept up at the Cresting Wave's main base. It sure beat riding around in the lifts, even if places to 'safely' park were few and far between here in the Lowers.

"T-thanks for coming here with me."

"It's nothing, Selos." She turned to smile at me. Unlike the shuttle I'd ridden in before, this one apparently was almost entirely VI piloted, so it was actually safe for her to do that and not risking running us into the rock and metal walls that blurred by outside the windows. "Elana and Silla took a few hits on our last contract so the cabal's off the active-duty rotation. I had nothing better to do, and besides, you're a friend."

"So?"

"So this is what friends do. Go with friends to check on someone they care about who's hurt, or to keep them company when they're lonely."

I turned my head away from her. "'Company' isn't exactly what I need right now, if you mean it like Elana seemed to think you did." The choking gasp that turned into a cough was audible even through her armor and it brought a smile to my face for the first time since I'd gotten the call.

"N-not like that!" She protested, "You're a friend, not a _friend_."

After all the serious things that had been on my mind recently, the polite bickering with her was relaxing, and the good kind of familiar. It reminded me of back when I first got on the station, before everything had gotten complicated.

The car just barely fit in the balcony of the store, but it was the safest place to park it. It wasn't like Elana seemed to care about the paintjob it had, or anything. The store was closed indefinitely, except for deliveries to the White Tigers, and would be until Sal'Ris was feeling better and I was more confident in our safety. We had a 24-hour guard from the gang stationed outside the door now, which had already overrun almost all of the Shadows' territory in this half of Fumi. It almost felt like we were prisoners.

I'd been worried about Zakal as the hours passed waiting to be able to visit my wounded friend, but on the ride down there I'd gotten a message that he'd terminated the contract yesterday for a "more civilized job where the Asari don't leave a fungus on your quad". One less friend I didn't have to worry about, and one more mental image to join what I wanted to bleach out of my mind.

Irina followed me inside, and Mena nearly panicked before I introduced the two of them. Nia was sleeping still, curled up adorably in a nest of blankets in the Quarians' room, so it was just the three of us in the main room. The blood and juices had been cleaned out of the airlock and the building looked normal, but I couldn't shake the image of collapsed bodies with puddles of multi-colored juice dripping out of armored seals that had been there when the Tiger's cleanup crew had arrived. People who'd trusted me to let them go free when they could have easily shot us and stowed away in the building, but who I'd killed anyway. Their blood was just more that would stain my hands in my own nightmares, and when the bodies had been moved I hadn't let myself look away. I deserved the mental scars for what I'd done, and the image might even have a chance to work its way into my dreams. At least then the nightmares would really be mine.

We'd swapped out of our armor in the airlock, finally able to start on the week of decon, and I kept having to try rather hard to keep my eyes off of the Asari's undersuit, which had to be even tighter than Mena's. My armor wasn't even fancy enough to have one included, and slid on over my clothes. I was staring at the bandages on my fingers, wondering why they were still white-ish while I was a murderer, when an elbow jabbed me in the side.

"Hey, Selos, did you hear me?"

I blinked and shook my head to clear it, my hair flying everywhere. "Uh...no."

"Don't dwell on it, ok? That just makes things ten times worse, trust me." She looked at my hands pointedly, then at my lack of eyebrows. "What, uh, happened there?"

I blushed. "I test-fired a gun design that I didn't quite think through. It exploded." I waggled the bandaged fingers. "I'm just glad I still have all my fingers."

Before the Asari could reply Mena decided to interject, "What he didn't tell you is that Sal'Ris got him drunk for the first time right before he did that, and he was hanging off of the both of us." I threw one of the couch cushions at her and she grunted, breaking into a coughing fit and making me feel bad. But at least she seemed to be brave enough now to poke fun at me and be humorous.

"Ah," the Asari drew the syllable out and looked around the room. "Is that how the other couch was bent?" She started to take a sip of water from a glass she'd gotten earlier.

"No, that would be from the Krogan we had over watching Nia."

This time it was Irina that choked, hacking and coughing as she spilled her entire cup of water on the ground and her undersuit. "You _what_?!"

"We had a Krogan watching my daughter while we went to the bar," Mena chimed in, her voice almost certainly intentionally deadpan. "He broke the couch after getting frustrated with one of her cartoons."

The Asari's eyes were wide and it actually made me chuckle. I explained, "He's a friend, loves kids. A lot of Krogan, the ones that aren't dumb enough to join the Blood Pack, do. He's the one who set things up for us to get the airlock over there."

"You people are crazy."

I shrugged. "We might be, but you're the one voluntarily sitting here with us."

A few minutes of off-and-on conversation, mostly between Mena and Irina, passed before the Asari suddenly pointed at something in the corner of the room. "What's that?"

It took a second of looking for things to click in my head, since the lighting over that area was out and it was shrouded in overlapping shadows from Nia's terminal. "I honestly don't know yet; it was a gift from Zakal to pay back for my store getting trashed during a fight. I haven't gotten a chance to open it yet. I started to get up to go grab it, reaching for my cane, but Irina pushed me back down onto the couch and lazily cast her wrist out. A blob of cobalt flew out in an arc, hitting the box and bringing it skittering to our feet. Whatever was inside rattled. She bent down and got it before I could, handing it to me with a smile.

The box was black and made of some kind of sturdy plastic, the lid tightly sealed on somehow. I couldn't figure out how to get it off, at least with my cumbersome fingers, and sheepishly handed it to Irina. She popped the seal on it somehow, a hiss escaping as the air pressure between the inside and out equalized, and then handed it back for me to open. When I did, I blinked and...

 _"... and the Xinthac cluster is almost overrun. Pull our people out where possible; let them harvest the clients and we can regroup in Delphon." Javik's voice was grave as his finger traced from the flickering red indicators on the hologram to a steadily-pulsing green system almost at the edge of the space we had accessible. "We'll have time to get the Phoenix initiative underway if the stealth ships can set up on Malvaras." The map flickered, briefly zooming out to show the layered cutout of the galaxy before zipping in to one of the black systems, zooming in on a garden world labeled as having been harvested fifty years prior._

 _One of the other Protheans gathered around the central pit gestured and it zoomed out again, revealing the ever-shrinking clusters of systems still in contact with us here, scattered around the galaxy and isolated without the Mass Relays, in splashes of green amidst grey lost zones and the black of the Harvest. Only a few flashed red, signaling active assault and ongoing combat. As they argued my lower set of eyes drifted to the projector levitating in the middle of us. "What if..."_

... a sharp sting brought me back to my senses, my eyes refocusing slowly as my thoughts shifted back from Prothean to Batarian as I looked at the lined tetrahedron inside the box. My face burned where the Asari had slapped me, Mena almost flinching back as I looked up and saw them both standing in front of me. Irina looked extremely concerned.

"Are you alright? You just froze and started mumbling something neither of our translators could understand," she explained, flustered. "Your eyes were going two separate directions. I didn't even know Humans could do that."

I shook my head, my stomach twisting into an almost excited knot as I gingerly reached out and cradled the object. This time no flashbacks happened, but I wasn't going to get my hopes up yet. I turned to the Quarian, my voice strangely calm as I said, "Mena, please check this entire floor for bugs. I need to make a call."

She seemed confused, but her omnitool lit up and for the next few minutes she was scanning it over every nook and cranny this side of the airlock. She came up with an all-clear, and my fingers almost instinctively roamed across the device in my hands, gently pressing on the three intersections to activate the power source. It started to glow, green light spreading like liquid poison along each of the etched in lines as I shifted my grip to the three blank spaces, pressing on them as I intoned in Prothean, "The Canvas must be seen." The back of my mind was telling me that was the activation phrase.

It had to have worked, as the pyramid levitated out of my hands and split apart, the central emitter bouncing lasers off of each of the others to make an intricate web of holograms showing the entire galaxy, every single cataloged star marked in either grey or black.


	10. Chapter Nine - Embers

_Chapter Nine - Embers_

It felt like every word was a punch to my gut, the force travelling up and splintering my ribcage, sending the shards into my heart and ripping it into pieces. The verbal hammers were sent from a face, teeth bared in a snarl, and eyes that gleamed like black marbles with hate and disgust.

"...and I will _NEVER_ help you.'

The call clicked off and I was left, shaking, to bury my head in the pillow and try to forget how one of my oldest friends had just called me a murderer to my face and blamed me for the deaths of almost everyone we knew. For the second time. And it hurt just as much as it had all those months ago. I couldn't stop the tears that soaked into my pillow.

I don't know how long I lay there, the deactivated Prothean device forgotten on the floor. I'd stopped crying, but I still wasn't feeling very well when my door slid open. I couldn't bring myself to move and see who it was. The audible footsteps meant it was probably Irina, anyway. Mena and Nia were almost silent whenever they moved, but I'd spent enough time with the Asari to know her armor wasn't really quiet.

"Uh, Selos?" She sounded hesitant. "Can I come in?"

"You already did."

"Then can I stay?" she went on. Her voice was timid, not something you'd expect from a mercenary on Omega. The cynical side of my mind, which had listened to what Bern had said when I'd told him I was with the Corsairs, brought up that it could be an act. I tried to ignore that thought, though. I trusted her.

"I don't know why you'd want to."

My bed creaked slightly, the mattress dipping down. "This is a star map isn't it?" The bed shifted and I assumed she had picked it up. "I've never seen anything like it before."

I grunted. "I'm not surprised. It's Prothean."

She seemed to be waiting for me to say more, but I didn't really feel like it. So there was just awkward silence until she asked, "Is that what you were speaking when you turned it on?"

"Yes."

She didn't seem to know what to do. Eventually I felt a hand on my back, fingers cooler than a human's just resting between my shoulder blades. She didn't move it or anything, just left it there.

"What happened?" There was a pause. "If you're alright with talking to me about it, I mean. You don't have to. You just seemed so excited before you came in here, and it's nice to see you smile. Not enough people do that on this station."

"I called a friend. She works with someone who could have gotten us a ship." I sighed. "It didn't go well."

"A ship? Why?"

"These maps aren't just starcharts. They have detailed data on every planet, accurate to the last survey or when their communications grid failed. That includes precise locations of every facility they maintained, and descriptions of the purpose of those places." I lifted my head up just to pound it down into the pillow. "It would be a gold mine. Unspoiled Prothean ruins, plenty of artifacts to sell. Anything truly revolutionary we could sell to the Council. And Prothean weapons tech... if we could just get to it we'd be rich."

Those weren't my real reasons, of course. Not all of them, anyway. I mostly just wanted to get a Prothean fabricator or a reliable source of their materials. The galaxy wasn't really ready for some of the technology I'd seen in the memories, even if it could give everyone a chance to prepare for the Reapers, which was what the mass-murdering machines had been called. I still had no clue what to do about them; it wasn't like anyone would have believed me if I'd gone out ranting about death machines from deep space.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Her hand clenched my shirt. "The Terminus is even more chaotic than usual. It's barely even been a day and apparently all of the major merc and pirate groups are crashing against each other like waves on the shore."

I shrugged. "It doesn't matter anyway. Cessa would be the only one I'd trust not to turn on us, and Lilush was the only way I had to get in touch with her."

Her hand relaxed on my back, patting awkwardly. "Hey, that's ok. We'll find a way once things calm down, alright?"

"It's just... Lilush was one of my only friends growing up, along with her brother. After what happened, I don't think either of them will ever talk to me again." She didn't ask the why. Just like when we first met, neither of us asked about the past or why we had to go to Omega. I still wasn't really in high-spirits, but I felt a little bit better. Except, as I just realized with a big rumble in my stomach, I was hungry.

"Was that you?"

I blushed. "Yeah. It means I'm hungry."

"Oh!" She actually sounded excited. I remembered from while we were setting up that she'd always gotten excited around mealtimes. "Well, come with me. We can fix that easily enough!"

Apparently, she liked to cook. That became clear as she complained about what we had stocked in the fridge but she laid out a pile of ingredients anyway and started fiddling with the stove.

"You don't have to cook for me, you know."

She chuckled. "Nonsense. You look like a stick already, and it's only been a few weeks. You're obviously not eating right, so you deserve at least one decent meal!"

"It's a shame I didn't know you guys were so lonely around here; you never really messaged me or I could have tried to come around and help out a lot. I'm not really essential to the Cabal, and most of the time we're not doing much anyway." She smiled. "It's really bad out there now, but sometime I'm going to take you out to eat down in Doru. There's this one human place that does dextro too, and it keeps the place clean so you two could even come."

The last part was, of course, directed at the two Quarians behind us in the living room. The elder was teaching her daughter something, at the moment, so neither was paying very much attention to us. They'd given a polite greeting about how they were glad I was ok when we came back in, but that was it.

"You probably know more about human food than I do."

"Why do you think that?" She had some type of cured meat that Sal'Ris had bought in a pan on the stove, and was cutting up some slightly-aged fruit into a bowel. She shooed me away every time I got too close to the food, slapping my hand away with her biotics and telling me to be patient.

"Because there were only a few human families on my planet, and none of them cooked much. I grew up on Batarian food after the first few reactions when I tried eating something dextro." I shrugged. "I still can't cook it, but I know a lot of the dishes the low and middle caste eat."

Mena looked up and chimed in, "Except he can't take Batarian Ale. He nearly hit the far wall with the spray when Sal'Ris gave him some." I grumbled a few oaths under my breath, but her comment didn't really make me mad. It was true, after all.

Irina just laughed, the sound like bubbling water, and wriggled her entire body in a gesture I'd learned to equate to a human headshake. "Sounds like quite an event. Reminds me why I never drink."

The Quarian shrugged, her daughter apparently done with the lesson for today. "It helps me forget some of the things I've seen, so I do it when I can."

I grunted. "I can understand that, but I never intend to do it again. That headache was worse than my migraines." Irina had seen me suffering from one of them before, so the wince was obvious.

It took almost half an hour for the food to finish, but I could actually relax and feel like things would work out as the two of us sat, ate, and just... talked.

* * *

It was with a big sigh of relief that I greeted Mena as she finally stepped in through the airlock, practically dragging a huge bin of... something in tow. I'd woken up two days after the first meal with Irina to find her gone, no sign whatsoever to show where she'd gone. That was unusual by itself, since she never went out alone. When the airlock registered that she'd left just after I went to sleep, I'd gotten more worried. It had been over a shift and she still wasn't back.

I couldn't handle something happening to her after what happened with Sal'Ris, who was still in that medically induced coma. She hadn't been answering my calls or messages, an automated response saying that her account was currently set not to receive anything and to try again later. She'd left Nia behind, and knowing the woman she had to be planning to come back, but as the hours dragged on I was about to call the Asari so we could go out and search. Omega was bad enough normally, but the war with the Blue Suns and Aria's constant press to smash their main base meant the smaller gangs were running rampant.

Then she came in. I was standing staring at her, my arms crossed and my posture as stiff as any angry Batarian's. This was the first time she'd ever really upset me, and it was still more worry than anything else. "Mena. Just what do you think you're doing?"

She froze, her hand dropping from its rim and the bin thudding to the ground with a clank. I just stared, unblinking until she started wringing her hands and looked away from me. There was still no answer from her.

"You've been gone for over ten hours now, and you haven't been answering any calls." I sighed and my arms slowly dropped down to my side slowly. "Do you have any idea how worried I've been?"

The Quarian kept wringing her hands. "I-I didn't think it would take this long. The encryptions were better than I thought and it took forever to find what I was looking for. The inventory system was worse than even the 91st's, and then the parts were almost rusted together and..."

She was rambling. I sighed. "Mena, what did you do?"

My employee and friend still didn't look at me. "I might have hacked the Blue Suns' omnitools and found out they'd been guarding a storage cache here in Fumi."

"You stole something from one of the biggest merc groups in existence."

She flinched at the words, but nodded. Then she started rationalizing, "Aria said that the Blue Suns were fair game. The building had been looted already but I found these," she gestured at the box, "inside. They're parts to an old combat mech. I-I thought we could use something like that to help protect the store if we could fix it up. I've worked with them before, I know..." I waved a hand and cut her off, in the same motion stepping forward and embracing her in a stiff and awkward hug.

"Mena, I'm not mad that you did it. I'm mad that you did it by yourself when you could've gotten hurt and we'd never find out. You shouldn't scare me like that; just imagine how Nia would feel if she lost you."

The next fifteen minutes were mostly silent after Mena agreed not to pull something like that without telling us again. She was mostly relaxing, the box of miscellaneous parts abandoned by the door. Mena would move it when she was ready, since it was her idea and her project.

* * *

The bandages unwound from my fingers and I let out a sigh of relief. There were still marks from the burns, but they didn't hurt. And according to Dr. Solus, the Salarian in charge of where Sal'Ris was being treated, it was past the risk of infection. Our Batarian friend hadn't woken up, yet, but that was apparently because she was in a medically induced coma while everything regenerated. Two more days and she'd be woken up, another one following that and he'd release her back into our care. Free of charge, which was something I really hadn't expected from Omega.

Irina giggled at the sound I made as I could finally wriggle my fingers again. The rude gesture I flipped her just earned another giggle, and a snort from Mena. She was on the other couch, messing with two VI cores. She'd been complaining for days about both the quality and the disorganization of the parts she'd taken, since apparently it had scraps from almost a dozen different kinds of mechs and not just the old model she'd been looking for. So everything had to be sorted, and repurposed to fit into what she was working on. Right now she was trying to figure out which of the two cores it had contained worked better.

That meant she'd co-opted the main projector for a simulator program that I didn't even pretend to understand. According to her it basically ran the VI, with a simulated body and pre-set scenario packs to measure what it would do without risking getting shot, tackled, or otherwise attacked by a glitchy machine. It looked like a video game, kind of, like something Nia would play. Except, you know, it was violent enough that we kept her out of the room during this.

I winced as the mech blasted the enemy-designated units and kept going, not listening to the IFF functions. Mena cursed and reset the simulation, her fingers hacking out changes into the coding.

"You've been working on that thing for awhile. Maybe try taking a break?"

She sighed and the simulation shut off, a standby screen replacing it. That screen vanished as we flipped onto another broadcast. The Citadel news station I'd flipped it onto didn't show up, though, instead a reedy Salarian voice overlaying a projection of a ship painted with Aria's markings on it. As I watched the entire ship shuddered, flashes of light cascading down its side and tilting it slightly before the maneuvering thrusters flared. The camera zoomed out and showed a delayed picture of a ship in Blue Suns colors shaking itself apart as spurts of flame and debris clouded the space around it.

I didn't have my translator attached, but subtitles along the bottom of the screen supplied that this was some Blue Suns Captain's command ship, a headline scrolling at the bottom identifying this as Aria's personal broadcasting station. It explained how the Blue Suns had jumped into the system, engaging both the Eclipse and Aria's own Black Fleet, before a mess of slips had started fleeing from Omega itself, the defensive fleet and the station's own guns blasting dozens of freighters out of the void before they jumped to the relay and out of the system.

The destruction of the battlecruiser basically marked the end of the battle as I checked the data on my omnitool. Nothing was confirmed, but apparently the ships that had fled the station marked the last of the Blue Suns holdings that weren't encircled or dragged down in the fighting. Captain Dougal's personal ship had been sighted fleeing, so that meant he'd jumped ship. Tarak would die the moment Aria found him, which meant the Blue Suns were done for on Omega.

A quick report was typed up on my omnitool, summarizing the events and linking the more reliable news reports and video footage I could find. It was off after a few minutes, and we ended up just gossiping with Irina about what this meant. Hooked into the Cresting Wave's network, she knew what was happening better than us. I was selective about including anything she told me in reports, though, not wanting her to be punished if anyone found out about the leaks. So basically I just passed on that, in the wake of the death of the Talons' leadership, somebody had already stepped in and started organizing the group into something else. They were currently cooped up in their enclaves in upper Fumi, only attacking if someone threatened them. The Shadows were barely alive at this point, most of their members having defected. The Batarians had been executed by the White Tigers, apparently, and that had a large portion of the district's population up in arms against them. I'd told everyone that it didn't seem like they'd be able to hold everything they'd taken, but that they would definitely still have the strength to provide hangers for any vessels that wanted to dock.

They'd also been fighting the Brotherhood of the Fallen, something I'd made clear I didn't approve of. But there was nothing I could do. They didn't need to know who all I associated with, and since my business could conceivably take me all over the station I had a free pass to get by without questions as long as I supplied them.

I wasn't sure what else to do after the report was done except just talking to Mena and Irina. It was a big change to just be able to spend time with them, but that wouldn't last. The simple fact was that I had to open the shop again now that this district at least was peaceful and I was healed. It would raise suspicion if I didn't act like I was trying to at least make money.

* * *

"What are you doing Mr. Selos?" The high voice came out of nowhere and made me jolt, the diagnostic wire ripping out of the port on the gun and shutting down the command prompt I'd been working on. I had to bite back a curse since that undid fifteen minutes of work.

I took a breath to calm myself. I'd been having anger issues ever since the starmap had opened and that last flashback had come through. I couldn't blame Nia for being curious; I understood how torturous it was to be stuck inside with nowhere to go, since that had happened during blizzards back home. Especially when you were a kid with as much energy as she had. "I'm trying to fix the coding in this. I'm really bad at it though."

"Can I try?"

I blinked. Mena had enough on her hands with the half-built mech in the other side of the room and her insistence to work parts of my shifts, so I hadn't asked her to help. But I knew that Nia spent a lot of time working on a terminal, and Mena had said that the girl coded with her free time. It was hard to forget the screaming face that had resulted when they were still new to the store. "Maybe. Do you think you can code it to alternate between heatsinks? Like, it diverts all the heat to one side until that one starts to vent and then uses the other while that one cools down?"

She made a little purring, whining sound and I scooted over so she could hop up onto the bench. She almost had to kneel on it to comfortably reach the console that was part of the table with the hardwired connection to link up to guns that couldn't be serviced wirelessly. That also meant they couldn't be hacked, though, so that was why I made sure that my custom guns needed the wired connection.

I had a hard time keeping up with the lines of code as she swapped the keypad into a Khellish script. She stopped once or twice during it to look something up on her omnitool before hammering away at the tablet again. Five minutes passed before she used the scan function on the code and started reaching for the gun. She paused then, though, and looked at me.

I smiled at the tacit way of asking for permission. "I took out the ammo block; it's perfectly safe to test. It's set to build up the heat as though it's firing, though."

Permission granted, she picked it up. I was glad to see her hold it carefully away from herself, but it was a bit saddening to see someone so young knowing how to use a gun. Her finger fit well enough into the trigger guard, and then she started squeezing the trigger. Six times, and then the right side of the barrel was glowing, an actuator that was a recent modification to the design pushing it out and revealing the casing around the actual firing tube and accelerators. The extra space meant the sink would cool faster. Not fast enough for continuous firing, not by a longshot, but with only a second or two gap with proper fire management. The test matched up, mostly with the sinks extending and retracting in a practice rhythm. The girl's coding actually worked, a lot better than mine would have.

Her chatter in Khellish explained what she'd done, but I couldn't understand all of it. Most of it was as clear as the water during an algal bloom back home, but I gathered that she'd overwritten the entire firing sequence and worked out a bridge between her coding and the other systems inbuilt into the gun. She seemed excited, talking about how she was glad to be able to actually do something.

How fast and well she'd done it made me feel a little bit inadequate. But as the part of my mind that thought in Prothean now was quick to go to, nobody could be a master of everything. Nia wouldn't have a chance at designing a gun, which I was starting to feel more confident about doing even without pulling the designs from my memories. Everyone had to specialize; that was a basic part of Prothean civilization even during their fall. While the dead Prothean inside my head had been a gunsmith, and to an extent an armorer and a mechanic, he would have been just one of those things if it hadn't been for the Reapers.

I made sure that all the coding for the gun was backlogged into the system under three layers of password protection before unplugging the diagnostic cord and slipping the covers back into place, leaving the modified model on the table. I'd start making more of them later, probably after more testing and improvements and once Sal'Ris was back so I'd have more time between shifts.

"Thanks so much for your help Nia! I couldn't have done this without it." I gave the girl a hug and she squeaked. It was something that she always did in a hug, which I found adorable. I'd never been around a kid like her before. It was a really nice change.

* * *

"It's good to see you awake, Reyja'Krem." The woman was propped up in her bed, a datapad in her hands.

The Batarian just barely inclined her head at me. Her expression was schooled and neutral, but there seemed to be a hint of happiness in her eyes. "It's good to be awake. The doctor already explained what's happened."

I winced in sympathy and there was a bit of awkward silence between the two of us. "I'm sorry we weren't here when you woke up. Aria had locked down this level while she went after Tarak. She broadcasted his execution live and then offered a pardon to any Blue Suns willing to join her, and this was the first chance we could get to safely get down here with all the rioting."

"I know; I watched the feeds, and I don't blame you." Her tone was as unassuming as she could make it, but I thought she sounded a little disappointed as she asked, "Where are Mena and Nia?"

I smiled. "They're currently adjusting to being out of their suits."

She blinked. "Really?"

I nodded and offered a hand to help her up from the bed. "Yes. The system we had put in cleared out the leftover germs. They'll be safe, except for maybe a cough or a few allergic reactions to our germs. They're adjusting and spending some time with each other now; they deserved some alone time after so long."

She tried to stand on her own, but winced. Even with the regenerators she wasn't even close to full strength now, but I understood why she was reluctant to accept my offer of help. It was a Batarian ideal, believing that to do such was to surrender power to another. And that was a big no-no.

"I don't think I'd have survived a hit like that. You really are something else, Reyja'Krem."

She grunted in acknowledgment and shuffled next to me on the way out the door. The pace was more set by me, since I didn't have my cane. But I could tell that she wouldn't have been able to go much faster even if I hadn't been holding her back. Irina was waiting, my cane strapped to the back of her armor, in the lobby for us, smiling through her clear faceplate. Her nod wasn't exactly what was due to a highborn like Sal'Ris, but the fact that she tried showed she really did want to get along with the Batarian. So she was polite in return, though nothing verbal was said.

We were almost out onto the street when the door slid open and four figures in off-white armor came in. I didn't recognize their colors, but it seemed like some kind of professional group. Two of them were on either side of a third, the one being supported with several finger-sized holes in the plating oozing blue blood. The sight made me wince, especially since I could see the floor through one of them.

"This clinic has full surgery wards, correct?" the one standing in front, a woman from their voice, asked.

The receptionist nodded. "Yes, though Dr. Solus will need a moment to prepare it."

We continued out the door once they were out of the way. Just before it closed, however, the words that drifted out cleared up who they worked for.

"The Lady Warlord remembers those who..."

It clicked shut, and I knew I had another report to make.


	11. Chapter Ten - Unmasked

_Chapter Ten - Unmasked_

"I should go." Irina was standing hesitantly at the bottom of the stairs up to the airlock. "I don't want to intrude on your private moment."

She started to turn to go, but I reached out a hand to stop her as Sal'Ris kept going up the stairs. "Irina, you're a friend. Mena likes you almost as much as us, and Nia positively adores you. They're not going to mind, and you deserve to be here." I offered a shy grin. "Especially since we'll be having you here a lot while your cabal recovers. Right?"

Her head dipped down and I thought there was a slightly purple tint to her cheeks. I had to be imagining it though. There was no reason for her to blush. "I guess you're right."

I smirked. "Then come on up, girl. It's time for the grand reveal of the resident lovely ladies." A glance at Sal'Ris, in a set of nondescript clothes rather than her almost omnipresent armor, saw me amend that statement with, "Well, two of the three." The Batarian huffed and flipped a rude gesture at me.

It took several minutes for the airlock to cycle, but it felt like an eternity. Sal'Ris kept one set of eyes locked ahead on the door but the other kept flicking over to where Irina was stripping out of her armor. She had the undersuit on, but as I'd noticed before it was rather tight. In an effort to keep from laughing, which failed miserably, I ended up covering my mouth and snorting. Irina was confused, stacking her armor in the set of stands I'd put in, but the Batarian knew that I'd seen. Her glare promised death if I said anything, her hand resting casually on the knife that I'd returned to her at the clinic. I just rolled my eyes and shrugged stiffly, freezing up as the door opened. Before I even saw anything, I could hear a high voice humming something like the music Fillna'Seni had played in her store.

Mena and Nia were waiting, the latter kneeling between the former's legs as a brush ran through her hair. The hair itself was different from anything I'd ever seen, more akin to the bristles on the brush than what my own follicles produced. Nia's was longer, not just comparatively, and the way it arced down seemed unnatural to me. Instead of being pressed close to her skull the white fibers only started bowing about half an inch down their length. It ended in a ragged line near her waist, the strands on the side hiding her face from us and ending in a line along her shoulders.

The younger Quarian had on a vibrant yellow dress, shot through with grey chevrons, that left her arms bare. Only patches of her skin were visible under shorter clumps of the same bristly hair covering it down to a fine fur on the back of her hands, the grey speckled with lavender dots. The same fine fur covered what I could see of her legs, except it was shorter and laid flatter than higher up on her body, seeming like streaks of white paint on her skin.

The older one had shorter hair, pulled back and falling to her shoulders, with just a few strands dangling in front of her face. Her skin was a couple of shades darker than her daughter's, but with the same lavender spots starting on her face and trailing down her neck and, presumably, connecting to the patterns on her arms and hands. They focused around her eyes, the watery orbs that seemed to glow even in this light outlined in lavender that offset the massive silver irises. Her eyes had to be easily twice as big as mine or Sal'Ris's, with next to no sclera visible around the edges and just a thin oval of a pupil oriented vertically.

Her face was thinner than a human's, slightly more angular. Sharp bones were outlined in the flesh above her almost gaunt cheeks, the rounded arch more prominent than in anyone else I'd seen. The memories in my head had shown Quarian faces to me, without context, but they seemed more primal than this. Feral, with the gleam of intelligence in their eyes muted instead of flaring out as Mena's did. The two of them were breathtaking, far more so than foreign memories and the corrupted VI that Nia had made of her father. I found myself smiling as I saw Mena's tongue, slightly forked and a deep purple that contrasted greatly with her dark grey lips, flick out between her ivory teeth as she yawned.

The woman blinked, a tracery of veins visible even at this distance from the backlit glow of her eyelids, and her lips quirked up in a human-like smile that showed the pointed nature of her front teeth. Predatory. Her voice was accented, but much crisper than when it was fed through her suit's speakers. "Nia, I think you can finally show off your dress now." The mother laughed, the sound throaty and sibilant

The girl apparently hadn't heard the airlock opening, which was something I really needed to fix. Her humming stopped the moment that her mother spoke and she'd shot to her feet in the blink of an eye. The bristling mane of hair swished to the side, revealing a smaller, smoother, less-gaunt face with the same luminous silver eyes and a similar pattern of spots, though on her they formed two vertical bars on her cheeks as well.

Her face was practically lighting up with excitement, her eyes glowing a little brighter. Her dress stretched down to the upper of the two joints on her digitigrade legs, the fabric twirling as she did. Her giggle was light and almost like a bell, lacking the static that had always plagued her suit, as she started running toward us and shouting our names.

She hugged Sal'Ris first, sending the Batarian stumbling back into the door of the airlock with a muted grunt. Most of the chatter coming from her was in Khellish, but Sal'Ris apparently understood it. She was murmuring things back that I didn't understand and could barely hear. It sounded like Khellish, but with some kind of a different accent. I had no idea that she knew it, and Mena seemed surprised too.

Next, probably since I was right next to the her first target, she did a little twirl in front of me, the edges of her skirt flaring out as she gave me a gentler hug. She knew how unstable I was with my leg after having knocked me over several times with the tackle-like shows of affection she seemed to favor. As she wrapped her arms around me I felt little claws dig through my shirt and into my skin. "Thank you so much Mr. Selos. That yucky suit was so terrible!"

I awkwardly patted her on the head, feeling her hair and marveling at how different it was from a human's. While I was doing that and her head was buried in my stomach, Sal'Ris snorted. "You won't be thanking him when you get a cough and a rash everywhere from allergic reactions."

"Nuh-uh!" She shook her head, and from the feeling I noticed she had no exterior ears. "Itchy is ok!"

The Batarian snorted again as the girl's claws released their grip and she moved over to Irina. The girl squealed when the Asari picked her up, literally, and spun her around. She always seemed so much more comfortable around kids than anything else. It was adorable to watch, especially with how both of their faces lit up now that the suit wasn't in the way.

My eyes were drawn away from the scene as the young girl's mother stood from the couch, a flowing shirt of some kind of blue fabric going down to cover the waistband of black shorts that ended at her knees. Everything looked loose and comfortable, something I could imagine was a relief after being stuck in their suits for so long.

"We really can't thank you enough for this Selos. We haven't done anything to deserve it, but you went through all the effort to have this done just for us." She smiled and hugged me. "I know you'll say that it was just the right thing to do, but it really means so much to us. People just don't do something from the goodness of their heart in the Terminus, not like you have. You're a gem, a real gem."

Her eyes shifted to Sal'Ris and Irina as her shoulders slumped slightly. My stomach churned as she continued, "There's something that..."

Whatever she was about to say was cut off as her daughter jumped down out of Irina's arms, her legs flexing in a way that made me kind of jealous, and grabbed Mena's hand. The rapidfire Khellish was too fast for me to make out anything, but the girl dragged her mother back into their room.

We'd walked out of the hallway of doors by the time I spoke next. Irina was on the couch next to me, with Sal'Ris having limped over to the kitchen and started sifting through the cabinets for something to eat. From this angle the ugly scar from where her amp had burned was visible, a puckered oval of sunken flesh glistening with medigel.

"So, you speak Khellish?"

The Batarian grunted.

"I never knew that you could speak it. Or that you and Nia were that close. It's kind of adorable." I smiled and went on as Irina chuckled. "Who knew the Reyja'Krem would have a soft spot for little alien girls?" She growled and I decided to shut up. Even if she was still recovering I knew she could move faster than me. Needling her, as multiple bruises from the last few weeks could attest to, wasn't the best thing for my health.

Irina let out a sigh of contentment as she stretched, something in her back popping. "This was the first time I'd seen an unsuited Quarian. They're both so cute! Nia always reminded me of my little sister back home, but it's just more now that I've seen how happy she is to get new clothes." She chuckled. "Their fur is so much different from yours."

"I told you it's called hair! Not fur!" I threw a pillow at her, which she stopped in midair with biotics and lightly tossed it back at me.

Our banter was interrupted by the door to the two Quarians' room flying open and the girl prancing out in a deep purple dress that accented her skin. It was pretty obvious now that we'd be a captive audience for her own little fashion show, something that left even the gruff Batarian relaxing with happiness in her eyes.

* * *

The turn of the shift, about four hours later, saw both Quarians starting to sniffle and rashes spreading across their visible skin. At Mena's insistence, both of them were wearing breather masks to keep from passing anything back and forth between them as easily. Sal'Ris was still in the shop, relaxing or napping or something. I wasn't sure what, especially since Irina had forcibly evicted me so that she could drag me to the restaurant she'd mentioned before.

It wasn't any kind of fine dining, the manners displayed by the other patrons horrible even compared to Sal'Ris and the kids back home. It was some kind of Asian food, which if I remembered right was a country or continent back on Earth. My parents never really wanted to talk about that planet, so I only knew the briefest of history and geography and stuff from it.

The restaurant was about twenty minutes from my shop, located on a corner of a rather quiet intersection of streets, for Omega anyway. An awning kept the rubbish from the floors above it out of the small outside eating area, which was connected by wide, slightly-tinted windows to a fairly clean inside eating area. A short woman with grey hair held the counter, alternating between choppy Batarian and some other language. Irina had insisted I not wear my armor, something that made me really uncomfortable and self-aware, so I had no translator to tell me what language it was. Through the old-fashioned swinging doors behind the counter I could see a few younger people of the same ethnicity working the machines to make the food, and it all smelled delicious.

"This woman, she's amazing. Even the Krogan don't mess with her. Rumor has it that she pried the crest off of the last one to attack her and that she uses it as a soup bowl."

I wasn't sure how much of that sentence to believe, but it didn't surprise me in the slightest that people said that. She seemed to be a very domineering, short-tempered, and capable woman in the short time it took for me to order some kind of sweet-and-sour dish that Irina recommended. We took one of the inside tables to avoid the majority of the outside stench. Irina wasn't in her armor either, instead in a dull green sleeveless dress or gown that ended partway down her calf. Our guns were obvious, though, and I had a jury-rigged shield generator ripped from an armor suit on a belt around my waist. It never hurt to be too careful.

We hadn't spoken much during the trip down here, but after we were settled I asked, "Why did you insist I not wear my armor?"

"You don't wear armor on a date silly."

I blinked. "A date? What does a time have to do with this?"

She shook her head and laughed. "Not a calendar date, a date. You know, like when two friends spend time alone together having fun and getting to know each other better." She paused and her cheeks flushed darker. "Well, it's also what people call romantic things too. Elana said that not everyone considers the two the same like us Asari."

A light burn settled into my cheeks as she kept blushing. "Uh... ok?" Awkward silence followed for a few minutes as she wouldn't meet my eyes. "So... you talk to Elana about this stuff? Dates and everything, I mean?"

She rolled her shoulders. "Most of the time. She..." the girl paused and thought for a second. "She looks out for all of us, but especially me. I'm the youngest in our cabal, and she's like my surrogate mother. I talk to her about everything, especially the first time I've gone out with someone by myself since I left home."

I blinked and volunteered something I hadn't told anyone yet. "I've never done anything like this before. There were just a couple of dozen families back home, and most of them were Turians. I spent a bunch of time with my friends, but there was never really anything possible to do that could be called a date."

"Wow! The tower I grew up in on Illium had a few thousand people, by itself. I can't imagine living somewhere that small."

I shrugged, changing the topic as fast as I could. "It's what I knew growing up. So, to me living with that many others is weird. This station is a constant headache whenever I'm not inside."

She laughed. "That's not just because there are so many people. I'm pretty sure there's something in the air here that does that to everyone." There was a pause. "Why else would so many people be ripping out their crests without even being on drugs?"

I shrugged. "This place should be empty by now, with how many people die every hour. But it just keeps getting more crowded. There have been a few good people, you included of course, but this place could give any slaver den or Blood Pack colony a run for its money in terms of scum and insanity."

She sighed. "I know what you mean. This place sucks in people with nowhere else to go and then washes them out with the tides." She shook her head and smiled. "But this is supposed to be a happy time. So let's focus on good things."

The food came out after that, and as we ate the conversation slipped into a comforting loop of trivial topics. It went from kindhearted arguments with both of us claiming our homeworld's sunset was the best, to her trying to convince me to watch biotiball. Then it was just general advice from her about surviving on Omega. A lot of it I'd seen or learned in my time here, but a lot more was stuff I really appreciated hearing. For some reason, I kept having to jerk my eyes up from the open triangle in her dress. It was more modest than almost everything I'd seen Asari wearing here, but compared to Batarian and human standards it was very unusual. Not a bad view, but something I felt weird and bad for staring at.

My stomach felt weird, like it was warm inside, and my throat was dry from all the talking as we left, and I found myself holding her hand. Her skin was smooth and cool, the fingers weaving in between mine like they were made to. I didn't feel like I was split between anything, whether humanity or protheanity or my heart and mind or anything like that. I was just me, the person that Irina saw something special in.

Then my omnitool dinged and didn't stop. It was a direct message, like how I talked to Mellaris, but there was no sender displayed and it didn't stop going off until I opened it.

 _Come to Afterlife. Alone. Wear armor, skip the line. Tell the bouncers you're there for a meeting in the Waving Tides room, then tell them your name._

 _Consider this an order. We don't need to remind you of the consequences of disobeying your sponsor._

It could only have come from the Corsairs, but this was the first time that they'd contacted me directly like that. They'd told me how unsafe it was to leave traceable messages like this. And just like that I was sick with worry and conflicted again.

Irina's fingers slipped from my hand as I stopped in the middle of the street to read over it again. I'd just finished when the message just disappeared, a piece of extranet spam appearing in its place. My insides felt cold now and I could feel it drip like ice in my veins. It was almost like watching my happiness evaporate.

"Irina, this has been wonderful... but something just came up." My words were choked as she turned to look at me, her smile fading as her eyes widened. "It's not anyone from the store. They're all ok, as far as I know. I can't stay here, though. I need to go."

She couldn't hide her worry. "Selos, are you in some kind of trouble?" She didn't wait for me to reply before saying, "If someone's threatening you know you don't have to go through it alone. I'm here, and I have a couple of friends in the Wave that I could convince to help. I..."

I cut her off there. Lying made me feel like a monster, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything else. "It's nothing like that. Just... someone I know had something come up. I need to go help them."

"We..."

"No, Irina. I need to do it alone." I pulled her into a hug and sighed. "Just walk me back to the shop, ok? I need to get my armor before I can go. This-it's urgent, ok?"

* * *

The servos installed into the armor clicked and whirred, my face crinkling in pain as something pushed into my leg. The pressure let off after a second as the supporting ring locked in around my intact upper thigh, and for the first time in months I stood and took a step without my cane or someone else's support. The first few were wobbly, the servos whirring and adjusting with each one. At least one step sent something sharp into my leg, warmth dribbling down inside of it, but the important part was that it worked. The modified armor let me walk normally, which would be important for this.

Trying out the suit I'd been tinkering with in my free time on the first solo trip outside of the store might not have been the best idea, but it was something I was set on. One of my pistols, which I really needed to get around to naming, was on my hip on a magnetic clamp, and I could feel the weight of the third extant copy of my Starfire shotgun on the small of my back. Irina was watching me from the stairs as I prepared. I trusted her not to follow me, even though I knew she was worried.

"Thank you for understanding," I told her. My voice, even to me, sounded muffled. I was sweating from nerves, which meant the climate control in the armor started cooling down and I had to suppress a shiver with how that affected my sweat-soaked clothes. "Just tell them that I had to go help a friend, ok? I don't know when I'll be back, but I will be."

She didn't move as I went down the stairs to the shop, closing and locking everything behind me as I left. The machinery had adjusted by now and only about every third step saw something press into my leg. My gait was a bit uneven, a slight lurch marking every step with my bad leg, but it was nothing like openly carrying around a cane. While I got a few looks, mostly hateful ones from humans because my walk and posture was much more Batarian than anything else, nobody approached or tried to harm me.

I'd seen the massive nightclub that was Aria's fortress before, you couldn't live or walk through Fumi without doing so, but I'd never even set foot in the attendant district it dominated over. An elevator, guarded by the White Tigers on this level, took me up to the Fumi-end of one of the main pedestrian bridges to Afterlife. The homes on this level were some of the most opulent I'd ever seen, personal guards of whatever people owned them mingling cordially with Aria's own, the latter also lining the path to their mistress's centerpiece.

Afterlife's own district was the cleanest I'd seen, by far. As I walked up the path, it was also the calmest, even compared to the Brotherhood's territory in Doru. It wasn't as quiet, but it was crowded with people minding their own business. The glow of Afterlife's exterior spotlights and the many signs of dancing flames and scantily-clad Asari lit up everything better than even the massive lamps that served as the main lights for the open cavern that was the Core.

I could just see the door when I started to pass a massive line of people. Every race, including Drell and a Hanar, was represented in it, and most gave me filthy looks as I walked past. The vast majority weren't in armor, though, and weren't willing to step out of the line to confront me. The vast steps in front of this entrance were a tougher challenge, sending spikes of pain through my leg, as I passed lines of deactivated turrets and walked up to the massive Elcor bouncer. Mounted on his back was what looked like a vehicle-grade cannon, one which swiveled to aim at me as I approached.

The flaps on his face vibrated as he spoke, the tone making my insides vibrate. "Menacing; the line is not a suggestion. You are not priority; wait or leave."

My throat suddenly felt dry as I replied, "I have a meeting in the Waving Tides room. My name is Selos."

He squinted ever so slightly. "Challenging; we are expecting a human. Give your full name."

I was sweating again now. A slow movement with my hand retracted my visor, showing that I was human, as I explained, "I have no last name. That is my full name."

The tone of voice was the same monotonous baritone as he stepped back and said, "Cordial; apologies for the trouble. Proceed inside, the bartenders will direct you."

As soon as I passed through the door, everything seemed to start vibrating. The thrum of the music was shaking my insides, and the glare of the synthetic flames along the entry hall was so much different from anything else I'd ever seen. When the door at the other side opened, it was loud enough that my visor shrieked out a warning about flashbang grenades and automatically blocked most of it out.

I kept my eyes locked on the bar. Or, at least, on the nearest one. I was definitely not comfortable being around and looking at everything here, from the barely-clothed dancers to the people sitting in scattered tables and booths partaking in almost every kind of drug imaginable. It was sickening. At least most of the sweaty, dancing people avoided me because of my armor.

The bartender was a Turian. He pointed me to a back corridor and said that one of the guards would guide me. Sure enough, a Batarian who preferred to communicate by grunting walked me through soundproofed corridors lined with doors and camera. We stopped at one with a few Asari symbols etched above it, and he walked away after unlocking the door.

The room was about the same size as my shop, decked out luxuriously with what might have been real wood chairs and a table inlaid with holographic terminals. A boardroom of some kind. It was empty, except for two chairs on opposite sides of the table. A human in dull silver armor sat on one side, his helmet on the table revealing fiery red hair cropped fairly short and a beard that was tucked in to the neckpiece of his armor. Across from him was a helmetless Batarian with tan skin and dark blue armor, streaked with lighter shades.

"Finally," the Batarian growled out in highborn. "I have better things to do than this."

I slid into a chair at the end of the table as the human apologized, "We had not planned for such a sudden meeting, and this man was a fringe asset."

The Batarian just fixed one set of eyes on the other man, unblinkingly, while the lower set locked onto me. "Helmet. Off, now."

I shrugged and removed it, the seals hissing as the pressurized environment inside met the outside air. The ceramic clinked as it hit the table and I politely tilted my head to the Batarian. He didn't show any surprise, but tilted his head the opposite of mine. "Now, you two are the only Alliance personnel on station now, and that includes those pirate-hunting pets you keep in the Traverse."

"Now, personally, I'd rather throw the both of you out of the nearest airlock. You can never trust a spy. But, Aria's decided that credits, favors, and guns are more worthwhile for the moment." He gestured at the two datapads on the table, one of which the other man slid to me. "That has the full details of the agreement, but here's the gist; you two can do whatever that snivelling government of yours wants, but your messages have to route through our systems. Any actions you take, you run by me first. The Alliance itself is covering the bribes to let you two stay, but Aria wants twenty of those shotguns you have, at-cost."

I realized what was happening as he listed off a bunch of other laws. Somehow, probably intentionally, Aria knew that he and I both worked for the Alliance. I was lucky she hadn't just had the both of us killed. After the list was rattled off, he explained that we'd be able to keep doing our jobs, and that Aria would give my shop her official protection and patronage. In addition, she would turn a blind eye to an Alliance-sponsored mercenary team that would be operating out of Omega.

She was definitely getting the better deal, and I was uncomfortable with giving a criminal warlord so many of my Starfires. It was between that and forfeiting my entire life, basically, so this was the better option. I harbored no ill-will towards the Batarian or Aria, but the other human... that was another story.

About fifteen minutes later, it was done. "That sums it all up. Get out of here before the next shift, and take the datapads with you. We'll be in touch at some point, and if you know what's good for you you'll answer." He was halfway out the door when he turned and locked eyes with us both. "If you try anything in here, you'll be wishing you were dead for the next century. Aria isn't kind to people who abuse her hospitality."

Then we were alone. And, almost simultaneously, we said in completely opposite tones, "We need to talk."

* * *

 ** _Author's Note: I'm really sorry that this took so long. Life has been a big roller-coaster and I wasn't satisfied with what I was writing at all. So, I hope you all liked it. I'll try to get the next out in a more timely manner, but with college coming up fast I can't make any promises._**

 ** _Thanks so much to everyone that's stuck with this from the beginning, and to all of the new readers that I'm hoping to get._**


	12. Chapter Eleven - Used

**Authors Note: So…uh… College happened. But, I think I'm gonna be writing semi-regularly now that I've got a schedule settled and not as much stress. Also, apparently I had this chapter done like three months ago and just never published it. Whoops.**

 _Chapter Eleven: Used_

He ignored the obvious tone of my voice and stood, scooping his helmet up from the table and moving to stand closer to me. He held a hand out to me while he spoke, "I apologize for the suddenness of this. The chaos on the station threw off our plans and put Aria on high alert, and it was either come to her like this or the both of us would die. I go by Heimdall on official reports, and it would be best for you not to know me as anything else."

I crossed my arms in a Batarian posture of defiance, not standing up or moving to shake the proffered hand. "Caring about what's best for me, huh? That must be new, considering you had my entire shop bugged."

He shrugged, a slight tightening of his facial muscles replacing a frown. "That's standard procedure for freelance and fringe agents. Even without a direct connection to our network, we had to monitor any transmissions and activity to see if other groups were intercepting your data. Traitors are common in the Terminus, and it was better to watch you than risk betrayal and the loss of the not-insignificant funding we've provided you. Had you known about the bugs from the beginning, we wouldn't have known you took an SIU agent on, or the two Terminus Quarians."

"Who I hire is my business, and your bosses told me specifically that I was free to operate as I chose, if I kept up my end of the deal. I've given you information, I've made contacts, and I even worked out a deal with the White Tigers to earn them docking permission outside of Aria's berths." I was positively seething, the pain in my leg ignored. "You weren't remotely honest with me about who I was working for, and you just confirmed that the bugs all through my store and apartment were yours."

"I'm not going to apologize, and even if I did it's not my place to. I've been on this station longer than you, my bosses on Horizon were the ones that hired you. Besides, it's practically common knowledge that the Alliance covertly runs the Corsairs, or at least supports them. The point is, it's your fault for not expecting to work for the AIS after getting an offer as generous as you did. Did you really think that pirate hunters would have enough spare funds to set you up like we did for next to no direct benefit?"

I stayed silent, so he sighed and continued, "Look, kid, I don't approve of how things work either. I can tell you aren't as old as you claimed to be, and I damn well know the men who hold the purse strings on Horizon knew it too. You're not even old enough to join the military, and it was almost blatantly obvious at first that you were a kid from some backwater planet who knew nothing about the galaxy. But they still sent you here to this shithole. I saw the deal with Bern, and I guarantee that anyone who you try to talk business to will peg you as a spook in minutes and you'll end up like the last five people they sent."

"That SIU girl you have working for you, she knows you work for someone. They get the training to pick that out, but I don't think she knows who. She looks more like a trained attack dog for them than a full-fledged agent, otherwise you'd have been interrogated by now. The Quarian has the look of an ex-militia, but she's Terminus stock and we know nearly nothing about them, save for their insane trophy takers. She's clueless, though."

"What's your point?"

"You're putting yourself in as much danger as we have. But now that we're sanctioned by Aria, I want to try to fix that. You're an AIS agent, legally or not, but we're both deniable assets. Our funding and orders come from mostly independent colonies, and there's no official trail linking us back. The same will go for the mercs they're sending in, so we have to try to look out for each other. I'm forwarding my comm address now, you'll be able to call on me if you need anything."

I slowly relaxed, my posture staying fairly stiff, though. Part of me could understand his reasoning and accept that he was following orders. That was part of the Batarian culture embedded in me, and even the Prothean. Obeying your betters was central to any kind of order, unless they had proven incapable. My anger cooled a little as I let out a sigh, my leg almost numb and probably in really bad shape now that I thought about it.

"I can't really believe that this is happening." I was letting myself look weak, which made part of me twinge with disgust, but I had too many things bottled up. "A year ago I was living on a beach with people I'd grown up with, learning to make armor. Now I'm half-crippled and almost everyone I knew is dead, and to top it all off I'm working as a spy on Omega. I'm not even eighteen yet and all this shit is happening. It's…it's a lot to process."

"I get it kid, I really do. Whatever asshole sent you out here assumed that just because you were born in the Terminus you'd be able to handle it all. You've done a better job than half the trained agents they've sent so far, but the fact remains that they didn't train you at all. Even if you end up getting killed, nothing can reflect back on them. That's their goal, and I don't like it. But so far you've done a great job, and so I called in a few favors…"

(Insert Space)

I limped back into my shop an hour later with my gimp leg almost entirely stiff and blood congealing in my boot, but with an official permit to purchase and sell all military-grade supplies provided by Hahne-Kedar, including armor and weapons above the basic crap that I had been authorized for before. The armor suits were a lot more expensive than guns, as was to be expected, and were above-stock quality. They'd sell well, whenever I could actually afford them. On the walk back, in between paranoid glances around myself, I'd typed up a short message to the supplymaster of the White Tigers informing them of my new inventory.

I'd also been given a small bonus from my new handler's personal funding, which went straight to Mellaris on Xentha, and a set of new codes and basic clearance into what little network the Alliance had in the Terminus, which would only be useful once I had a new terminal set up and code-locked to myself in the shop. I'd been told to expect a long-term contract to supply and fit a mercenary team that would be arriving sometime in the next few weeks that would be inserting itself into the chaos that was erupting in the Terminus now.

My pant leg was stained red below the knee, the fabric shredded even more than my flesh. A grunt from me coincided with a manual override that left that legs armor on the ground, along with streaks of blood. Even just on the way back the gears had gotten stiff, and without the plating I could see congealed blood all through the assembly. That piece was probably scrap at this point, with how hard it would be to clean. But now I had an idea of what needed shifting around to stop it from happening again. It came off with a few fiddled commands, and left me leaning heavily on the workbench. I didn't see my cane anywhere. Irina must have taken it up into the apartment area when I'd left. Or it fell over and rolled under a table. Either way, what came next wouldn't be fun.

I had too much pride to call someone down just to help me, but I still wasn't really proud of how I crawled on my hands and knee, singular, seeing how the other just left a light blood smear from the half-dried scabs and reopened wounds. There wasn't any guard rail though, and after everything that had happened so far I wasn't going to die by falling off stairs. If that happened I was pretty sure the ghost of whatever Prothean whose memories I had would flat-out strangle me whenever I got into the afterlife. Being murdered by a traitor like he had been was shameful, or so the memories would tell me, but dying by stupidity was even worse. So I bit down my pride and made it to the top of the stairs, mentally noting to build a handrail as I did, before lurching onto my feet with the wall as a support. While the airlock cycled I was lost in thought.

I wondered what my parents would think of me if they were still alive. If they'd be disappointed that I was working for the government that they'd fled, or that I was selling guns to criminals. If they'd be proud of how I tried to be there for people, of what I did to improve the lives of those around me. What they'd think of Irina, or of Nia and Mena. Or of Sal'Ris; they might have lived with Batarians for as long as I'd been alive, but that didn't mean they'd trust someone who was SIU.

They never talked about their lives onboard Cessa's fleet. I didn't know if they'd ever killed or helped kill anyone, or whether I'd already caused more bloodshed than career pirates and smugglers. But they'd raised me to be honorable, and in my case, surprisingly even at their encouragement, to follow the wisdom of the Pillars. If I was judged by that, then I was being good. I stood for my own power, and for the protection of me and mine. My property, my friends, and my employees. That was something so few people ever looked into, in the pillars; slavery was meant as a punishment, but slaves weren't supposed to be harmed. Their strength and power reflected on the master, and a thousand overworked and beaten slaves was worth less than a handful of skilled, loyal workers, bound by word and honor rather than chain. But of course, most Highborn chose to interpret that differently. That putting down the power of others proved your own, rather than nurturing it. Which was why my old mentor had left the Hegemony, when his preaching ran afoul of a local Ha'Diq's practices.

The gentle hiss of the airlock opening jarred me from my thoughts, and I took a few wobbly steps into the hall, catching Mena's eyes as she saw my blood-soaked leg. He luminous orbs visibly widened as I grimaced, flicking my own gaze to where Nia was playing with Irina. She seemed to get what I meant and moved to engage the girl, in the process blocking her view of my stumbling gait to the bathroom. We had a small supply of medigel in there, and even if bandages were a lot cheaper, I think a shredded leg with who knows how much mechanical gunk in it called for that. Plus it was close enough to my room that I could easily make the hobbling step across to grab my cane and change into cleaner pants.

By the time I came out Nia was gone, but Irina and Sal'Ris were outside the door, the latter offering me one of my canes. The asari seemed more worried than anything, but the Batarian was hiding any weakness like she'd had earlier, her face and posture both disapproving and intimidating. What was worse that she was in her armor, the patched up but nondescript suit she'd arrived in, not what she wore around the shop.

"Selos, I think you'd better start explaining things."

I gulped. "I…what do you mean?"

"Why your leg looks like a Varren used it as a scratching post, for one. But, most importantly, why you rushed to Afterlife of all places." Her voice was practically a growl. "You know damn well what we want to know. Don't insult us by dancing around the subject."

"For the first part, well, my armor wasn't near ready to be used. But I didn't have a choice." I didn't feel like they would hurt me, even Sal'Ris seemed to care about me too much to do that, but it felt wrong lying. But there was still the fact that she used to be SIU, and this wasn't the best time or place to break it to everyone about working for pirate-hunters and the Alliance, neither of which were well-liked even by the most civilized areas of the Terminus. I made a split-second decision to hide it behind half-truths and omissions. "Can we move this into the living room and bring in Mena before I say the rest?"

She made an irritated nose, but turned and moved into the living room, while Irina handed me my cane and then walked beside me to the couch. Mena came in a few minutes later, still wearing her breather mask and shifting around uncomfortably. She was wearing minimal clothing, still, but her rashes were obviously painful.

I sighed, really not looking forward to this. "Can I at least ask how you know that's where I went? I'm not going to lie or deny it, I just want to know how."

"I followed you. Irina thought you might need help." Sal'Ris answered, a grunt preceding the addition of, "and I had to make sure you didn't get in over your head. Obviously, it wasn't enough."

A few deep breaths later to quell the roiling nerves in my stomach, I told the first of the night's half-truths. "A situation came up with one of my employers."

The motion of my head intended to forestall questions worked. Irina and Mena had picked up that much about mine and Sal'Ris's body language. "It's not really an official job, but a group from Horizon gave me the money to start the shop in exchange for an ear on what's going on here. I was naïve to take it, I know, but I'd just lost everyone I'd ever known. The deal gave me a way to use my only real skills, and if all we've got here is anything to go by I did fairly well, right?"

"The thing is, they still have all the official paperwork for my arms license from Hahne-Kedar. So my contract was…renegotiated. They cut a deal with Aria, and I got called in to Afterlife to hear about it. It wasn't something I could put off, and I had to go alone. I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you just tell us?" Mena asked, her expression drooping sort of in what I recognized as either hurt or sadness. "You could have died you…you _keshin_."

"It's not that I didn't trust you; I just didn't think it was relevant, or that it would affect any of you until now."

The Batarian huffed, "You're walking a thin line, human. Horizon isn't a very popular colony around here; they openly host and sponsor the Alliance's pet pirate hunters, and that makes up a big part of Aria's income. You're lucky you didn't get a bullet in your head before being thrown down the waste chutes. How do you think Nia would have felt if you never came back?"

I blinked, then hung my head in shame. "I was stupid. I realize it, and humbly ask for your forgiveness. I'll be open about everything, now. You don't need to worry." The words stung as they left, guilt welling up in my chest.

"There's only going to be a few changes, though. I can't tell you everything about the deal without breaking the contract, and my word is all I have. Basically, though, we're going to have Aria's official sanction now. Anyone that picks a fight with us, picks a fight with her. I'll be keeping her supplied with all my experimental gear, in exchange for that honor, but otherwise we can operate however we want."

The harsh look on the Batarian woman eased ever so slightly, the muscles around her gleaming eyes relaxing, as I continued. "On the side of my sponsor, they pushed through permits for me to sell armor and high-end weaponry. Once enough profit comes in we'll stock several special-forces grade guns and the basic range of armor, grenades too. Soon enough we'll have a foundry that can handle some of the more complex customizations, so we can expect even more business and profit. In the meantime, though, we'll have a professional mercenary team on-contract. I don't know what their goal is, and I'd rather not; but we have to keep them equipped, at-cost, if we want to keep selling our current stock."

That soured her expression a little, but it quickly slipped back into a neutral mask that I couldn't read. She had to suspect there was a lot more to what I was saying, but she didn't say anything about it. Mena had relaxed now, and Irina just seemed happy that it wasn't something bad, as evidenced by how she practically smothered me in a hug muttering about how glad she was for just that.

* * *

Irina left a little bit later with a list of drinks, courtesy of Sal'Ris, to find and bring back. The batarian was very clear that she was sick of not having any alcohol in the apartment, and insisted rather vehemently that all of us deserved a chance to unwind after all the shit that had happened since our night out at the bar. That left me sprawled out on the shittier couch while Sal'Ris ate some kind of sandwhich at the counter and Mena napped on the good one. Some kind of comedy was playing on the vidscreen but I wasn't paying attention. Instead I was messaging back and forth with Mellaris.

She'd gotten into extranet games in her time at the treatment facility, something which had cost extra funds but which I'd been more than happy to give so she had something to do. We were alternating between me poking holes in the logic of the various fantasy settings and her ranting about how it actually made sense and that the only problem was that the games weren't strict enough on the in-game laws on magic or a character's physical attributes. A lot of it went over my head, but she was really into it and I had to admit that some of the screenshots she'd sent me were beautiful, if unbelievable. For all that meant when I knew for a fact that giant machines had wiped out at least one unified and galaxy-spanning empire, and probably an unknowable number of others.

The gap between Omega's and Xentha's timeframe wasn't all that large, but it was just big enough that about a few hours would change between her time and mine every full set of shifts. That meant there wasn't really any consistent schedule we could get into for video calls, but text conversations were always happening. And there was usually at least one game of basic chess waiting for one of us to make a move, too. I usually lost, despite my mother having attempted to teach me all through my childhood with a glass and ivory set she didn't like talking about.

She signed off a few minutes before Irina got back and before I was even off the couch Sal'Ris was shoving a bottle of some dark purple alcohol into my hands. "You're drinking this whether you want to or not. This stuff's supposedly good, something you humans make on a few of your colonies. Try not to go overboard this time, your bitching gets old fast."

Irina brought me a cup as I shifted over so she'd have space to sit down, and I filled it with the drink. Wine, the label said. I think I'd heard my mom mention it once, but it was a long time ago so I wasn't sure. The first sip was…quite a bit more obviously alcoholic than the Asari thing I'd had last time. Still, the taste was kind of pleasant. Unlike anything I'd had before, and definitely not something to drink fast, but I found myself sipping at it again and again.

Half an hour later and my movements were decidedly more jerky than usual. If I moved too fast the room would start to swim and blur, but otherwise everything was fine. I felt warm and tingly, but I wasn't numb like last time. Which considering what Irina had on the screen was a bad thing.

"Fucking take this trash off the screen!" Sal'Ris grumbled, trying to grab the remote from her position crammed onto the couch next to me, a little of her drink spilling onto my lap as her arm groped across at Irina.

"I've got the controls synced, it's your fault for drinking and letting me pick the show." The Asari stuck her tongue out, grinning. It was nice to see her smile, especially while I kept sipping at the wine. I had no idea how much I'd had. "It's an adorable, deep, and romantic show, so I'm watching it."

"Deep? The plot is shallower than that inbred bitch's personality." I blinked. Mena was never that blunt, with anything. Or that rude. "The bitch gets awards for taking off her suit for a few scenes, but when we do it every day? Nothing. Pampered little bitch."

Mena had gotten drunk at the same pace as last time, and it wasn't long before she trailed off into mutterings that I couldn't hear or understand. She was taking up the entirety of her couch, legs splayed out and covered in a shawl as she scratched absentmindedly at her rashes.

The thing we were all complaining about was Irina's choice of movie, which was a version of Fleet and Flotilla. I was trying not to pay attention, but it seemed way too sappy. Like it was trying too hard at, well, everything. But at the same time it just skimmed over almost everything negative. That was what really irritated me. I guess if I hadn't seen all this shit firsthand while living on Omega, I wouldn't have minded so much. As it was though, we were stuck watching it, since she was the only one sober enough to actually keep the projector synced to her choice.

A few more sips, and in total probably half the bottle, saw me leaning against Sal'Ris so I didn't fall over. Mena had passed out by this point, and Irina had turned the movie up a fair bit to hear over her snoring. It still sounded kinda muted to me, like when I heard things while underwater back home. It was getting harder and harder to keep my eyes open and the tingling had gone a lot further than it had before.

The batarian had actually stopped drinking a fair bit before I had, and even as I thought about it she plucked both the bottle and the cup from my hand, sitting them somewhere out of sight and most definitely out of reach. She was still drunk, though, and more talkative than usual. Irina was politely ignoring our slurred conversation.

"'m su'prised we didn't have any of this back home." I hiccupped afterwards, my face crinkling at the feeling.

"They probably did, kid." Her voice was a lot less changed than mine, but the tone had gone way higher than her usual. Softer, too. "They just weren't going to share it, that far off the trade lanes."

"'aybe I wouldn't go 'erboard if I'd started sooner." I blinked and found my head lolling over onto her shoulder. "'en did you start?"

Her body shifted under me. "I don't remember." There was a long pause. "It wasn't regular until they were gone. The first time I remember I binged, just because they never let me, and then the trainers…" she trailed off with another shudder.

"It might not help me forget…but it's still an escape."

I had no idea what to say to that, and even through the inebriation I felt a twinge of worry. All I could do was connect my arms around her in a hug. After a moment of tenseness that I might have imagined, she just accepted it.


End file.
